"Waste of time" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too often—nay, too constantly—in the severer work and the stronger genius of Ben Jonson. What he might have done under happier auspices, or with a tougher fibre of resolution and perseverance in his character, it is waste of time and thought for his most sympathetic and compassionate admirers to assume or to conjecture: what he has done, with all its shortcomings and infirmities, is enough to secure for him a distinct and honorable place among the humorists and the ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... possibly find it now, and it is a waste of time to try. I can give you plenty of work to-day. Stay with me and serve as ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... you or to me," said Lord Earle. "I am sorry for you, Helena—Heaven knows it wrings my heart—but I shall not break my word! I will not reproach you," he continued, turning to his son, "it would be a waste of time and words; you knew the alternative, and ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... such a way. If a scholar is not prepared, it is not of much consequence whether it is because he forgot his book or mistook the lesson; or if it is ascertained that his answer is incorrect, it is ordinarily a mere waste of time to ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... opinion, if 'selling' would be given more thought by such world famous writers as you, it would be a powerful factor in the complete revolution of business, and eliminate to a great extent the waste of time, money and human life that is so recklessly thrown away under the present ignorance of true salesmanship." N.A. Corking, Sales Mgr., Ford ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... House afore we start. An' while they'll all be a-foolin' away thar time a-ridin' round that thar ring, ye an' me will be a-gittin' married." Ten minutes ago Jacob Brice did not think riding around that ring was such a reprehensible waste of time. "What's ter hender? It don't make no differ how ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... for them at Snapwood may be a mere waste of time," said he. "On the other hand, I don't feel much like going on while the shares ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... had been so firm. "But,"—and Mr. Sprugeon shrugged his shoulders as he spoke,—"when a nobleman like the Duke chooses to have a way of his own, he must have it." Mr. Sprugeon went on to declare that any further candidature would be waste of money, waste of time, and waste of energy, and then signified his intention of retiring, as far as this election went, into private life. When asked, he acknowledged that they who had been acting with him had come to the same resolve. Mr. Lopez had in fact come there ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... thoughts flashed across his mind almost in an instant; there was no hesitancy, no waste of time. His eager eyes searched the narrow confines of the stateroom for some possible weapon with which to assail the door. The stout stool alone seemed available. Swinging this over his shoulder, hampered by the narrowness of space, he struck again and again, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... enlightenment and progress, while the latter, it is hardly too much to say, have remained almost universally stationary. To argue, therefore, from one to the other is not only impossible, but absurd; and it is merely a waste of time to point out, at any length, that what may be admirably suited to one set of people may be a positive nuisance to another. With reference, then, to this question of caste, instead of treating India as a whole, I shall divide it into town and country populations. In the first place, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... lovely woman wills to do She does without a reason. To interfere is waste of time, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... then methinks 't is time to smile again. O world, how apt the poor are to be proud! If one should be a prey, how much the better To fall before the lion than the wolf! [Clock strikes] The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you; And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest, Your wife is like to reap a proper man. There lies your ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... the seigneur, to invite insult. To yield a second time to the ingratiating addresses of the guide was to lose her self-respect, while to indulge in and encourage a pure affection for Ringfield was a waste of time. She recognized the truth of Crabbe's candid statement—how could she do the young man such an injustice as ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... something to work for, something to make work an object to him. What has he got to work for now? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He's merely keeping up appearances, and he'll never get anywhere in God's world until he finds out that it's a waste of time working for a living ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... apparently returned to his slumbers, but we now saw that he had emerged from the banner and was standing behind us, fully dressed (I discovered later on that he had discarded dressing and undressing as frivolous waste of time), a queer uncouth figure with his long touzled black hair and sallow, unhealthy face. He had a short clay pipe firmly set between his teeth, and his large lips were parted in a smile. He held his head slightly on one side, and his whole attitude was ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... lay the blame for the waste of time on our shoulders, but the truth is that we were never admitted to the deliberations until yesterday; although two and one-half months have elapsed since the armistice was concluded, and although the progress made by these leading statesmen is manifestly ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Darwin's case it is hardly possible to exaggerate the waste of time, money, and trouble that has been caused by his not having been content to appear as descending with modification like other people from those who went before him. It will take years to get the evolution theory out of the mess in which Mr. Darwin has left it. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... depend on the Divine power; but God's will, because of his perfection, cannot be other than it is, and therefore things cannot be differently constituted. For to suppose otherwise is to subject God to fate, an absurdity which is not worth waste of time to refute. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... in Galesburg, is received. I regret to say that I cannot do so now. I must stick to the courts for awhile. I read a sort of a lecture to three different audiences during the last month and this; but I did so under circumstances which made it a waste of time, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... that with all the holy advice and examples about him he had never managed to keep his own soul for one day, so how could any wise person think him fit to rule other folk? Could he set up a new house, if he could not even keep the rules of the old one? This is childishness and waste of time. "Let us for the future leave such matters alone, and since the business is hard and urgent do you only occupy yourselves to see that this king's undertaking be frittered no longer away half done, to the peril of souls and the dishonour of the holy order, and so from among you or from your other ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession—an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely those of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... recover some of the oars. This was not accomplished without a considerable waste of time and a good deal of exertion. On the dismantled embarkation there was not a stick that could be used for rowing; and it was necessary to propel it with their ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... obstinate and determined as ever," she continued rather petulantly. "Don't be overconfident though; you might fail, you know, and failure is always discouraging—it involves such a waste of time." ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Well, girls, I think, by trying to look into the future, we are apt to grow discontented and restless, and to forget that we have duties to perform in the present. Then, if we do not believe in it, it is a waste of time and money, which might be better employed in relieving the suffering of the poor around us. But the greatest evil of all is, that we should believe even a part; she would of course tell us many little circumstances which would be true of any one; thus we ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... of ourselves, or when one is asked of us by another, we do not always know beforehand which part of ourselves will answer. Mystery of mysteries, to be solved only by assuming that man has an immortal soul. Idle waste of time, thought Rex, looking at the cartridge in his revolver and then slowly setting back the hammer. An idle waste of time, to think of such matters. Honour or no honour, heart or no heart, the mysterious power within him bade him die. Die, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... was silent: then he stretched his hand out with a franc in it. "It is folly, as I say, and evil waste of time: nevertheless, it is like Alois, and will please the house-mother. Take this silver bit for it ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... there was in the wards an elderly man, who for months had been vainly trying to recruit his strength. He had not been a prisoner, but had been sent to the rear on account of feebleness. Now John Bump thought it a great waste of time to be staying here in the hospital, where he was doing no good to the nation, while, if he were at home, he might be acquiring quite a fortune from his "profession," for he was a chair-maker. His descriptive list not having ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... can't for the life of me call them CORIPHAENA HIPPURIS) came alongside, a rush was made for the "granes"—a sort of five-pronged trident, if I may be allowed a baby bull. It was universally agreed among the fishermen that trying a hook and line was only waste of time and provocative of profanity! since every sailor knows that all the deep-water big fish require a living or apparently living bait. The fish, however, sheered off, and would not be tempted within reach ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... you've the sort of intellect which cannot grasp the proof which Euclid gives of one of his propositions, no number of repetitions of it will help you in the least. That's a curious psychological law, but it is a law. Therefore it would be the merest waste of time for me to demonstrate to you again that Mrs. Lorimer and Miss King are the same person. I pass on to the next stage in our enquiry. Will Miss ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... parent did not know it, this remark was overheard by a detective who had been sent to the Nelson homestead to spy upon the boy. He at once left the place and informed his superior that the lad was innocent, and to watch further in that direction would be merely a waste of time. ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... last words made John's heart ache. "Looking backward, Rege," he said quietly, "will never make a man of you. It is only a waste of time and vital tissue. But there are lots of noble lives in spite of limitations. Paul had his thorn in the flesh, you know, and Milton his blindness. Difficulties are a spur to the best ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... than I possess; point after point is raised, and yet, if one pauses to meditate, to wonder, to aspire, one is lost, and misses the thread of the service. I suppose that there is or ought to be something in the united act of intercession. But I dislike all public meetings, and think them a waste of time. I should make an exception in favour of the Sacrament, but the rapid disappearance of the majority of a congregation before the solemn act seems to me to destroy the sense of unity with singular rapidity. As to the old theory that God ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... tracks, &c., reduced morning march to 8.1 miles. Afternoon, came along a little better, but again lost tracks on hard slope. To-night we are near camp of December 26, but cannot see cairn. Have decided it is waste of time looking for tracks and cairn, and shall push on due north ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... this room knows the two young men. It would be waste of time for me to strive to make anything in common between John Sprague and Wesley Boone. Here, where they both grew up, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... risk of carrying contaminating material into the birth-canal from the region about the opening of the vagina. Unless that region has been satisfactorily disinfected, sterilizing the dressings and cleansing the hands may become a waste of time. Sensible patients, therefore, will never object to the preparations which the nurse is instructed ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... be a world in which lies would have no value and deception would be a waste of time—a world in which truth would no longer be at the bottom of the well, but on the tip of every man's tongue. We should have all the rascals in prison and all the dishonest traders in the bankruptcy court. Secret diplomacy would no longer play with the lives of men, for there would ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... very futile employment, for it never does any good, and it reacts evilly upon the one who indulges in it, and those with whom he associates. It is a waste of time and energy. The energy thus used could ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... boots it, then, in every clime, Through the wide-spreading waste of Time, Thy martial glory, crown'd with praise, Still shone with undiminish'd blaze? Thy towering spirit now is broke, Thy neck is bended to the yoke. What foreign arms could never quell, By ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... chance acquaintances on the back, playing pool or billiards with skilful young men intent upon gain. In the early summer he got in with a party of young men from New York and with them spent months in sheer idle waste of time. Together they drove high-powered automobiles on long trips, drank, quarrelled, and went on board a yacht to carouse, alone or with women. At times Sam would leave his companions and spend days riding through the country on fast trains, sitting for hours in silence looking ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... places, into firm stone He sent, as if the stone were glass Fired and into beauty blown. Solemn and invented gravely In its bulk the fabric stood, Even as Love, that trusteth bravely In its own exceeding good To be better than the waste Of time's devices; grandly spaced, Seriously the fabric stood. But over it all a pleasure went Of carven delicate ornament, Wreathing up like ravishment, Mentioning in sculptures twined The blitheness Love hath in his mind; ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... apply them. The attitude of revolt against everybody and everything which Christophe had taken up led to nothing: he could not imagine that he was going to reform the world.... And then?... It was waste of time to knock one's head against a wall. A clever man judges men, laughs at them in secret, despises them a little: but he does as they do—only a little better: it is the only way of mastering them. Thought is one world: action is another. What boots ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... palliatives, drugs, unguents, pressure, and injections, as mere waste of time, and holding that the only method of cure consists in laying the fistula fairly open, the question narrows itself into this: What is the best method of laying it open? Prior to the discovery by Ribes of the great principle ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... their books Pored the people day and night, But he did not like their looks, Nor the songs they used to write. "All this rhyme Is waste of time!" Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... officer who, Miss Ailie felt almost certain, had a wife in India, and so how could she rest till she knew for certain? To track the officer by herself was not to be thought of, to read without knitting being such shameless waste of time, and it was decided to resume the readings on a revised plan: Tommy to say "stroke" in place of the "D—ns," and "word we have no concern with" instead of "Darling" ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... rough coat, I vowed a vow, boy as I was, to be at Branksome by the morning, or die in the attempt. I knew that it was no use going home to Kinmont for a man to ride with me, for it was out of my way, and would only be a waste of time. ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... knew that to Freddy the whole thing was a waste of time and an antediluvian affair. In the matter of education, the modern Egyptian would have been left hopelessly behind in the progress of the world, but for the Government schools instituted under the British occupation. These men at el-Azhar ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... after all! And if we capitulate after our first disastrous encounter, it does not mean that we shall be for ever vanquished, though it means perhaps a long and dreary waste of shame-stained days. That is what we must try to avoid—any WASTE of time and strength. For if anything is certain, it is that we have all to fight until we conquer, and the sooner we take up the ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I never lunch—frightful waste of time. I shall drop in at the Haute Gomme and take a ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... mental powers, and unfits them for close study and serious contemplation. It dissipates the mind, and creates a diseased imagination. It promotes a sickly sensibility, and renders its votaries unfit for the pursuits of real life. It is a great waste of time, and on this account alone may be regarded as sinful. But I would not advise you to read any books, merely because you can get nothing else; nor because there is nothing bad in them. There are many books which contain nothing particularly objectionable, which, nevertheless, are not the best ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... part of the fabricated statements which have been delusively put forth to deceive and misguide the public; but I presume it would be a waste of time to attempt to prove the abominable practices of these empirics; not that it would be a difficult matter to do so, for were I so disposed I could adduce such a body of evidence as would demolish their empty pretensions with as much ease as the sun dispels ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... was devoted to sewing. Mademoiselle, like most Belgian ladies, was specially skilful with her needle. She by no means thought it waste of time to devote unnumbered hours to fine embroidery, sight-destroying lace-work, marvellous netting and knitting, and, above all, to most elaborate stocking-mending. She would give a day to the mending of two holes in a stocking any time, and think ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Leonard, "is with ourselves. We assume every boy to have the soul of a professor, and every girl a genius for music. We pack off our sons to cram themselves with Greek and Latin, and put our daughters down to strum at the piano. Nine times out of ten it is sheer waste of time. They sent me to Cambridge, and said I was lazy. I was not lazy. I was not intended by nature for a Senior Wrangler. I did not see the good of being a Senior Wrangler. Who wants a world of Senior Wranglers? Then why start every young man trying? I wanted to be a farmer. If intelligent ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... so we cannot ascribe it to a desire for making himself prominent at their expense. It is simply a fault of style, or a result of his endeavor to be concise, and bring forward the most interesting events of the voyages and discoveries, with the least waste of time and effort. ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... "ever toward the Lord!" He studied the "ways" of the Lord, in order that he might incarnate them in national life and practice. Wise doings always begin in clear seeing. We should be far more efficient in practice if we were more diligently assiduous in vision. It is never a waste of time to "look unto Him." Looking is a most needful part of our daily discipline. "What I say unto you, I ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... know if I have mentioned or conveyed to you that Mrs. Gustus was a determined woman. At any rate she was, and it would therefore be waste of time to describe the gradual defeat of Kew. The final stage was the despatch of Kew to call on Nana in the Brown Borough. Jay's letter had the Brown Borough postmark, so it had apparently been sent to Nana to post. Nana might be described ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... caresses of little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste of time, and started out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... agree with you," the officer said when Chris had told him of their intentions. "In the first place, it would be a serious waste of time for you to remain here. Still, that is of comparatively little consequence, but I do think that it would be a grievous pity for you to risk your lives further. You have done wonderfully good service. You have had an experience that you ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... a waste of time. I have often helped those young women to take a brighter view of things, and it makes me feel that I am not just their ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... own destruction, defer taking a part in active military operations. It was no quirk, then, but solid reasoning, for the States to regard the subject in the same light. Holland and England were embarked in one boat, and were to sink or swim together. It was waste of time to wrangle so fiercely over pounds and shillings, but the fault was not to be exclusively imputed to the one side or the other. There were bitter recriminations, particularly on the part of Elizabeth, for it was not safe ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... made up my mind to go into the army, or rather to try for it, at all yet," said Forsyth. "It seems such a waste of time to sap for it, and then be sold after all. I can never do half so well as I fairly ought in an examination, because I take so long to remember things I know quite well, even if I have plenty of time to think them out. I can learn, but ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... us as we approached him, for we had found it a waste of time to attempt to escape the perpetual bestial rage which seems to possess these demon creatures, who rove the dismal north attacking every living thing that comes within the scope ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mere waste of time, you will not find it out. If you want to know it, keep silence! I will tell you our master's complaint: of all men, it is he who is fondest of the Heliaea.[16] Thus, to be judging is his hobby, and he groans ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... of O'Connor, he would find himself seriously questioning whether he would not do more wisely to leave the Guardian and hazard a new fortune in another field. Yet all the while he knew that this course of speculation was idle and a waste of time and cerebral tissues. He was a Guardian man, and with the Guardian he was going to stay—unless the Company itself took a different view. Of course there was a time coming when Mr. Wintermuth would lay down ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... to task, and the watcher watched. I had been placed in one of the first boarding-schools near town; a most liberal stipend had been paid with me; I had every description of master; yet, after all this outlay of money, which is not dross—and waste of time, which is beyond price precious, what was I at leaving this academy? Let the good folks withinside of the Stickenham stage testify; by one trick or another I had contrived to make them all tolerably uncomfortable before the journey was ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... as he was, could the Minister be expected to admit to an equal share in his love the child endeared to him as a father, and the child who merely reminded him of an act of mercy? As for his wife, it seemed the merest waste of time to put her state of feeling (placed between the two children) to the test of inquiry. I tried the useless ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... country, and that the cultivation of their minds will avail them nothing. Who does not readily perceive that the prevalence of this opinion must at once paralyze every effort for their improvement? For it would be a waste of time and means, and unpardonable folly, for us to attempt the accomplishment of an impossible work—of that which we know will result in disappointment. Every discriminating and candid mind must see and acknowledge, that, to perpetuate their ignorance, it is only ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... becomes choked, what is the consequence? The noxious and pestilent gases generated by the accumulated filth having no outlet, are forced back into the building, poisoning the atmosphere, and breeding contagion among the inhabitants. Deodorizing and disinfecting will simply be a waste of time and material, until the drain is cleared. The colon is the main drain of the human body, and if it be necessary, for sanitary reasons, to keep the house drains clean, how vitally important is it to keep the main outlet of the ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... special attention was necessary; and a large quantity of stores had to be shipped, because some of those in the Discovery had been damaged by the leaky state of the ship. This leak had never been dangerous, but all the same it had entailed many weary hours of pumping, and had caused much waste of time and of provisions. Among the many skilled [Page 38] workmen, whose united labour had produced the solid structure of the Discovery's hull, had been one who had shirked his task, and although the ship was docked and most ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... did he despise mankind. He thought that mankind did on the whole very well considering its difficulties. He was kind and often generous; he bore no man alive or dead any grudge. He refused absolutely to quarrel—"waste of time ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... we should be the last to deny. No respect is due to any employment of the intellect which does not tend to the good of mankind. It is precisely on a level with any idle amusement, and should be condemned as waste of time, if carried beyond the limit within which amusement is permissible. And whoever devotes powers of thought which could render to Humanity services it urgently needs, to speculations and studies which it could dispense with, is liable to the discredit attaching ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... at Tiflis, and here we are with cars still stuck in the ice thirty miles from Archangel, and ourselves just holding on and trying not to worry. But what a waste of time! Also, fighting is going on now in Persia, and we might be a lot of use. We came back from Batoum in the hottest and slowest train I have ever been in. Still, Georgia delighted me, and I am glad to have seen it. They have a curious ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... longer," she said, in a stronger voice. "It's just waste of time." She pushed back the clothes and swung her feet out of bed. "Oh, how glad I am to be back again! Are you glad I'm back, Ian? Say you are, ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... journeyings with the fat crystal-gazer than to stay in the house with Nick Pendarves as his grandfather's housekeeper. Here was a ticklish point to argue with her; and, for all her tears, there was a firmness in the set of her chin (it was dented with a dimple) that warned me such argument would be a waste of time. She had made up her mind, and would stand to it at all costs. It was martyrdom in an eminently feminine style; women deliver themselves up to it day by day, and contrive to be perfectly unreasonable, yet somehow in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... my dear," Ameres replied calmly. "At any rate, I should prefer it vastly to such a waste of time, and that in a form to me so disagreeable as that I have had to ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... a light laugh, "thou knowest that it is merely waste of time to affect indignation. I know thee too well to be deceived. Come, what is it that ye would consult me about? not the forging of a battle-axe or ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... Selection (meaning no selection at all, but mere dead accident and luck), the folly of trusting to vivisectors to hold the human animal any more sacred than the other animals becomes so clear that it would be waste of time to insist further on it. As a matter of fact the man who once concedes to the vivisector the right to put a dog outside the laws of honor and fellowship, concedes to him also the right to put himself outside them; for he is nothing ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... Francis & the 2 others acted like crazy. They kept shaking each other's hands & saying We are here, we are here, altho any body but a Nut would have thought saying it was a waste of time as even a small child could have seen that they were. And any way, why any body should want to be there ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... our society," put in Helen. "Are not you really thinking it a shocking waste of time to be here talking to two very unlearned women instead of seeking inspiration in ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the girl, "I can easily reach the rim of the Abyss. You see, I needn't fly northward to the point where we emerged. That would be only an unnecessary waste of time and energy. I'm positive the chasm extends all the way up and down what was once the Mississippi Valley, and that the Great Central Sea is fed by that and other rivers. In that case, by striking almost due west, I can reach the rim. After that I can volplane easily ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... searched, but in the archive formed by the writings of modern workers. To have myself gone back to original sources, even if I had been competent to do so, would have been in the case of Columbian research but a waste of time and a doing over again what has been done already with patience, diligence, and knowledge. The historians have been committed to the austere task of finding out and examining every fact and document in connection with their subject; and many of these facts and documents are entirely without ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... the manual work involved in producing books should be done by authors. It may be doubted whether there are enough authors in the world for this to be possible, and in any case I cannot but think that it would be a waste of time for them to leave the work they understand in order to do badly work which others could do far better and more quickly. That, however, does not touch our present point, which is the question how the MSS. to be printed will be selected. In Kropotkin's ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... porch of stone, with a bench of stone on either side, and pointed windows trying to look out under brows of ivy; and this porch led into the long low hall, where the breakfast was beginning. To say what was on the table would be only waste of time, because it has all been eaten so long ago; but the farmer was vexed because there were no shrimps. Not that he cared half the clip of a whisker for all the shrimps that ever bearded the sea, only that he liked to seem to love them, to keep Mary at work for ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... in my adhesion to Sandy's plan, but the Colonel overruled it on the ground of the waste of time to be incurred in thus ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... therefore, less tranquil or less meditative than usual, he rose early and sallied forth at one of those unusual hours he generally chose for walking. The thing must be put right somehow, and at once, with as little waste of time and energy as possible, and Henslowe had shown himself not to be trusted; so telling a servant to follow him, the squire had made his way with difficulty to a place he had not seen ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... decided views on the education of children. Her Royal Highness, it appears, strongly objects to "cramming" children with useless learning, which she declares is a mere waste of time. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... that the time for deeds was come. This fatuous conversation was but a futile waste of time. He set down his glass, and sitting back in his chair he fixed his sullen black eyes full upon ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... make their own clothes if they wish to, just as they can make anything else, but it would be a great waste of time and energy." ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... exclaimed, "if we're not going back to '76 after all, I think it's a dreadful waste of time for us to be throwin' away six months every hour ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... terrors, and to outvie in levity and extravagance the most practised professors of their new art. Few that see or hear them think, that even in the midst of their revels their hearts are often far away, or are extracting good from the evil spread before them; and that all the waste of time and talent, so openly and ostentatiously exhibited, is compensated in secret by longer and intenser application to the true object of their pursuit, and by acts of atonement and self-denial, of which the conscious stars of heaven are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... supplies and the functioning of the place as an air depot should. He told me that he thought 'it was about time these combat units learned how to do their paper work properly.' I decided that it would be a waste of time to fool with him so I told him to pack up to go ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... variable, at times sitting completely abstracted from what was being discussed, and then suddenly entering into the discussions, only to compel an entire going over of points already deemed settled, and raising difficulties which involved much waste of time. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... He was in a gay humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering till the last moment, and then stepping ashore, with as little waste of time as Lapham himself, on the gang-plank which the deck-hands had laid hold of. He touched his hat to her from the wharf to reassure her of his escape from being carried away with her, and the next moment his smiling face hid ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... association with these, that certain yellow streaks in Mr. Ruskin's drawing of the rock, at the Athenaeum, awakened in me such an immediate sense of indigestion;—also fried potatoes, baked beans, mince-pie, and pickles. The children partook of these dainties largely, but without undue waste of time. They lingered at table precisely eight minutes, before setting out for school; though we, absorbed in conversation, remained at least ten;—after which we instantly hastened to your counting-room, where you, without a moment's delay, absorbed yourself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... main for pupils to succeed. That these same pupils could do better is not open to doubt. Teachers in two of the larger schools asserted that with many pupils a kind of complacency existed to feel satisfied with a C, and to consider greater effort for the sake of higher passing marks as a waste of time. Such pupils openly advocate a greater number of subjects with at least a minimum passing mark in each, in preference to fewer subjects and the higher grades, which they claim count no more in essential ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien
... these hybrids and what Reed has published about those with which he is familiar I am convinced it a waste of time and effort to attempt to produce hybrids between black and Persian walnuts with the hope of getting desirable nuts. The trees themselves are very rapid growing, handsome and well worth while as shade trees. But the walnut breeder will have more to show for his ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... monasteries; but the brother was frequently visited by his sister, on the pretence of seeking spiritual advice. Their names were St. Honorat and St. Marguerite. At length the brother grew rather tired of his sister's visits, and called them a waste of time. 'Henceforth, let it suffice that I shall visit you occasionally, said he. 'When?' said St. Marguerite. 'When the cherry-trees blossom,' said St Honorat. Thereupon, St. Marguerite prayed that ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... tell you that I've never believed in dolls. I've always thought they were a waste of time and kept children from learning to do useful things. I've brought Rebecca Mary up according to my ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... little trouble as the heath when the woods are swept Bade his audience to beware of princes But the flower is a thing of the season; the flower drops off But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death Is it any waste of time to write of love? Not to do things wholly is worse than not to do things at all Payment is no more so than to restore money held in trust Self, was digging pits for comfort to flow in Tears are the way of ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... studying his friend. "You don't suppose this is all a waste of time, do you?" he ...
— They Also Serve • Donald E. Westlake
... too; how he came to California for excitement; how he had lived a wild life, and how he was trying to reform; and other details, which, from a woodpecker's viewpoint, undoubtedly must have seemed stupid, and a waste of time. But even in such trifles was the afternoon spent; and when the children were again gathered, and Sandy, with a delicacy which the schoolmistress well understood, took leave of them quietly at the outskirts of the settlement, it had seemed the shortest ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... "conditions" awaiting him, and the amount of hard work involved in their clearance was not at all to his taste. He wrote his guardian before the first week was over, asserting that the whole business was foolishness and a waste of time. He should come home at once, he said, and he notified the captain that such was his intention. Captain Elisha replied with promptness and decision. If he came home he would be sent back, that was all. "I realize you've got a job ahead of ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... The office mechanic fixes all that for him, and, so far as his efficiency as a reporter is concerned, an investigation of his faithful keyboard's internal arrangements would be in most cases an amiable waste of time. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... To go in search of the layer-out of bodies, who exists only here and there in the country-side, would be almost always waste of time; the favourable month, April, would elapse before my cage was suitably populated. To run after him is to trust too much to accident; so we will make him come to us by scattering in the orchard an abundant collection ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... them," said Challoner with dry amusement. "I can see their cleverness, but I'll admit that I think them rather a waste of time." ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... started out to see the Great World. Yes, Sir, he had turned his back on the Smiling Pool, and nothing that Jerry Muskrat could say made the least bit of difference. Grandfather Frog had made up his mind, and when he does that, it is just a waste of time and breath for any one to try to make him change it. You see Grandfather Frog is stubborn. Yes, that is just the word—stubborn. He would see for himself what this Great World was that his cousin, old Mr. Toad, talked so ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... even the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and Ascension, the Divinity of the Second Person, and the personality of the Third. It may be that this is a true view of Christianity; but we insist, in the name of common sense, that it is a new view. Surely it is waste of time to argue that it is agreeable to Scripture, and ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... "Seems a waste of time," observed the Virginian. He looked thoughtfully from one bed to another. "I didn't know I'd have to lay over here. Well, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... a waste of time to use arguments in the teaching of the primal principles which appeal to consciousness; and I am not certain but that elaborate and metaphysical reasoning on the nature and attributes of God weakens ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... contains a statement of pleasure in my letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive, desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and little transacted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rejoiced in being accessible to all the world; the one, with his airs and graces, was pleased to transact business slowly, the other was never so happy as when he could satisfy the demands of a petitioner without waste of time. (4) ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... butterfly fluttered alongside. M. Ferraud jumped out and swooped with his hat. He decided not to impart his discovery to the others. He was assured that the man from Evisa knew absolutely nothing, and that to question him would be a waste of time. At this very moment it was not unlikely that Breitmann and his confederate were crossing the mountains; perhaps with three or four sturdy donkeys, their panniers packed with precious metal. And the dupe would go straight to his fellow-conspirators and ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... over inland hills Sweep storming in late autumn brown, And horror the sodden valley fills, And the spire falls crashing in the town, I muse upon my country's ills— The tempest bursting from the waste of Time On the world's fairest hope linked ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... gratae at the White House. I long ago learned the waste of time in maintaining such ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... about it, Ruth has really lived three lives. She has lived her own and she has lived it hard. She not only has done her daily tasks as well as she knew how but she has tried to make herself a little better every day. That has been a waste of time because she was just naturally as good as they make them but you couldn't ever make her see that. I don't suppose there's been a day when at night she hasn't thought she might have done something a little better and lain ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... avoid people when I know them. But I've had such heaps of callers, and it's such a waste of time making conversation over tea when one wants to be out ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... worse than anything that had happened to him since the time when he ran back to the shaft to find the carriage gone and its place filled with firebrands. His journey had been such a mournful waste of time, of energy, and ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... have often been near his state.' Wooll's Warton, p. 229. 'I inherited,' Johnson said, 'a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. 'When I survey my past life,' he wrote in 1777, 'I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of the mind very near to madness.' Pr. and Med. p. 155. Reynolds recorded that 'what Dr. Johnson said a few days before his death of his disposition to insanity ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... a hundred ways, and although I confess that I voted for Home Rule, yet when we have time to consider it, and to watch the debate on every point, we may be excused if we become doubtful as to the good it will do. The people round here are so ignorant, that talking sense to them is waste of time. They will put their trust in coal mines and the like of that. Now, I have gone into the subject of Irish mines. I have read the subject up from beginning to end. Wicklow gold would cost us a pound for ten shillings' ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... man than the younger. But he remained poor, and had many children, so that at times they could scarcely get bread to eat. At last, one day there was not even this in the house, so he went to his rich brother and asked him for a loaf of bread. Waste of time! His rich brother only called him beggar and vagabond, and slammed the ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... to be painted," said Johnny Dooit, tossing his tools back into the chest, "for that would make it look prettier. But 'though I can paint it for you in three seconds it would take an hour to dry, and that's a waste of time." ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... torture for the sake of months of future peace, served an additional purpose as an advertisement. Farmers came from far back in the mountains to see the inhuman weapon, and incidentally brought along a calf or two to sell as an excuse for their waste of time. Their denunciations sent more of the curious, who were not deterred by motives of tenderness from submitting their creatures to the operation, provided they received a ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... the finished plate 9 is reached, only, as I said above, bringing up the surface to a finer state than the back—not to be called waste of time by you on any account, as you will soon understand when you come to find out what a heartless exposer of any frailty ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... "What a waste of time it has been this evening!" He sighed, as his fingers turned over the pile of letters by his side. "What with Mr. Peter Dale and his little deputation, and this idiotic person Graveling, I have scarcely done a thing since I ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... primitive races. Lafcadio Hearn has insisted upon this in the interpretation of the art and customs of the Japanese. He says,[12] "Art in Japan is so intimately associated with religion that any attempt to study it without extensive knowledge of the beliefs which it reflects were mere waste of time. By art I do not mean painting and sculpture but every kind of decoration, and most kinds of pictorial representation—the image of a boy's kite or a girl's battledore not less than the design upon a lacquered ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... the least "economical." The waste of life, the waste of material, the waste of time and effort, are prodigious, yet she achieves her ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... move, Bob. Waste is something no Scout can bear to see. Waste of life, waste of health, waste of time, waste of food—even waste of money seems a crime to a ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... caterers to popular tastes. Chicago society has been founded upon industry, and the culture which she now boasts is conserved only by the strictest attention to business. Nothing is more criminal hereabouts than a waste of time; and it is no wonder, then, that the creme de la creme of our elite lift up their hands, and groan, when they discover that it takes as long to play a classic symphony as it does to slaughter a carload of Missouri razor-backs, or an invoice of ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... leave me alone. I loaded my pistols and put them on the table within reach of my hand; but these precautions were a pure waste of time; nothing disturbed the silence of the room, and the heavy red silk curtains, with their coat of arms at the corners in tarnished silver, were not stirred by the slightest breath. Marcasse returned and, delighted at finding me as cheerful as he had left me, began ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... share of work and a declining interest in play. Some of us are even inclined to discourage the play instinct as the children grow older, because we have come to think of play as something not only frivolous and useless, but even a harmful waste of time. Now, the educational value of play keeps pace with the development of the child. That is to say, the child outgrows interest in games about as fast as these lose their educational value. The new games that ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... beginning to end. The student who really wishes to get a clear understanding of the matter is obliged to wade through a variety of scientific books, and to pick up here and there, by means of very hard reading, such little scraps of information as, with much labour and waste of time, he can extract from books which were, in most instances, never written for the purpose for which ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... disconcerted; but the lady had such a sweet and noble face, and her manner was so winning, that the girl found herself telling briefly not only the history of Katy's doll, but of Katy and Ellie too. It was not a waste of time either; for while she talked the purchaser made one or two additional selections, and then, after giving ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... dear," with a groan, "now I've got to hear all that made-up stuff that happened to a parcel of made-up folks that never lived and never will. Waste of time, waste of time. Where's ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... her with a gesture and a glance at his watch. "It always seems to me an unnecessary waste of time not to be direct. You have called to collect my arrearage ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the scornful curl of Culture's lip At such low sports! Dyspeptic preachers hear Harangue the sleepers on their sinfulness! Hear grave philosophers, so limp and frail They scarce can walk God's earth to breathe his air, Talk of the waste of time! Short-sighted men! God made the body just to fit the mind, Each part exact, no scrimping and no waste— Neglect the body and ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... be a useless waste of time, sir, if you had," Captain Rudstone interrupted, almost fiercely. "The characters are meaningless. I'll warrant 'tis but a jest on the part of some crack-brained hunter or trapper, or possibly one of the laborers who built ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... stands. For example, we all know that children enjoy the right kind of drill. Repetition, especially rhythmic repetition, is instinctive,—it satisfies an inborn need. Where such a condition exists, it is an obvious waste of time to search about for more indirect motives. The economical thing to do is to turn the ready energy of the child into the channel that is already open to it, so long as this procedure fits in with the results that we must secure. I feel like emphasizing this fact, inasmuch as the ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley |
