"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... modern English poetry has, it appears to me, felt the influence. To the exclusive attention on the part of his imitators to this, it is in a great degree owing that of the majority of modern poetical works the details alone are valuable, the composition worthless. In reading them one is perpetually reminded of that terrible sentence on a modern French poet,—il dit tout ce qu'il veut, mais malheureusement il n'a ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
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... you understand anything of this? If you can, you will begin to know what a serious matter our Life is; how unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed; what a wretched, insignificant, worthless creature any one comes to be, who does not as soon as possible bend his whole strength, as in stringing a stiff bow, to doing whatever task lies ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
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... plainly, and then you will understand exactly what you are charged with. Three nights ago we stopped a man returning from Lima. Many times he had gone to and fro unmolested, protected by a pass from Riva-Aguero. At last he was recognized by one of our men as Pardo Lurena, an utterly worthless man, who had already changed sides several times during ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
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... and the palaeontologists of North America supplemented it with a number of Lamarckian elements without alteration of its essential principles (the Neo-Lamarckians); Eimer regards the transmission of acquired characters as an established fact, but rejects natural selection as wholly worthless; Weismann, on the contrary, denies the transmission of acquired characters, but nevertheless regards natural selection as the main factor in the formation of species (the theory of the Neo-Darwinians). Eimer speaks of the impotence ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
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... usually an excrescence on a good book, and a vain apology for a worthless one; but, in the present instance, a few explanatory words ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
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... heart any longer. I love you—dear and good and noble one. If you could only love me a little, in return, I could make you so happy. I know I could, Christine, and as for me—why my life, if you refuse me your love, is worthless and wasted and dead. Oh, Christine, you are the very treasure of my heart, whether you will or no. Be my wife. You can make my happiness, as surely as I, if you will ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
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... greedy woman, as hard as nails, and as tough as leather—but handsome, oh, very handsome, as a girl, and clever, I assure you. I have often been almost glad that my brother did not live long enough to see her in her real colors. She married, very soon after Sylvia herself, a worthless Englishman—discharged from the army, I believe, who had probably been her lover for some time. Cary gave her a check for a hundred thousand to get rid of her the day after his wedding to Sylvia, and the pair ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
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... our Chinese cook, is doing splendidly. At first there was trouble, and I had some difficulty in convincing him that I was mistress of my own house and not at all afraid of him. Cagey has gone back to Holly Springs. He had become utterly worthless during the summer camp, where he had ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
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... extended throughout Europe, and she visited the prisons of many countries in her efforts to improve the conditions of penal servitude. The friendship of Mrs. Fry with the De Morgans began in 1837. Her scheme for a female benefit society proved worthless from the actuarial standpoint, and would have been disastrous to all concerned if it had been carried out, and it was therefore fortunate that De Morgan was consulted in time. Mrs. De Morgan speaks of the consultation in these words: "My husband, who was very sensitive on such points, was charmed ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
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... hundred and sixty-five advisers, and with them he took counsel as to what was to be done to Mordecai. (155) Pointing to a representation of his treasure chamber, which he wore on his bosom, (156) he said: "And all this is worthless in my sight when I look upon Mordecai, the Jew. What I eat and drink loses its savor, if I but ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
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... was wandering distracted, when I was found by some one in the interests of Monsieur de Culemberg. I understand he was sent on purpose; I believe, in order to reach the interior of the prison, he had set his hand to nameless barbarities; such was the price paid for my worthless, whimpering little life! He gave me his hand; it was wet, and mine was reddened; he led me unresisting. I remember but the one circumstance of my flight—it was my last view of my last 'pretty mamma.' Shall I describe it to you?" I asked the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
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... well as long as Baranof was on the ground. Sea-otter were obtained for worthless trinkets. Sentries paraded the gateway; so Baranof sailed back to Kadiak. The Kolosh or Sitkan tribes had only bided their time. That sleepy summer day of June, 1802, when the slouchy Siberian convicts were off guard and Baranof ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
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... at it," said his mother, "is this: whatever you are, Cynthy made you. You was a lazy, disobedient, worthless boy, and it was her carin' for you from the first that put any spirit and any principle into you. It was her that helped you at school when you was little things together; and she helped you at the academy, and she's helped you at college. I'll bet she could take ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
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... woman whose chief attraction had, for me, consisted not so much in her surpassing loveliness of person, though doubtless that had had its effect upon me, as in that angelic purity and fascinating simplicity and truthfulness of character which I now discovered to be a mere worthless sham. It was evident enough that Merlani had been her lover—most probably her accepted lover—when I appeared upon the scene; and that, dazzled by my appearance of superior wealth, she had in the most heartless and ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
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... and of mine, I have you now in my arms, and no mortal shall come between me and my love! Night and day I will watch and tend you, till the assiduities of my affection weary out the effects of your cruel disease brought on you—O God!—by your grief for me, your worthless Espras." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
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... filled the measure of a man and the promise of a boy. A useful tree was therefore the best tree. He had no use for white or gray birches, for they were neither timber nor vendible firewood. He often ridiculed them, and if there was a worthless fellow in town, he was, in his comparison, a gray birch, good for nothing but to hoop the cider barrels, of which the fellow was too fond; if a too gay girl, she was a white birch, dressed in satin, frizzled and beribboned, dress over dress of the ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
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... religion. And though superstition is often injurious, degrading, demoralizing, it is so, not as a form of corruption or degradation, but as a form of non-development. The crab is harsh, and for itself worthless. But it is the germinal form of innumerable finer fruits: not apples only the most exquisite, and pears; the peach and the nectarine are said to have radiated from this austere stock when cultured, developed, and transferred to all varieties of climate. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
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... presented them with tobacco, knives, calico, and looking-glasses, in proportion to what he thought might be their reasonable grief at the loss of such a worthless vagabond, and they departed. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
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... but a few shillings, Larry having hidden the wages of his treachery to his confederates in the folds of his neck-cloth. To pluck this from his throat, many a fierce wrench was made by the woman, when her attempts on the pockets proved worthless; but the handkerchief was knotted so tightly that she could not disengage it. The approach of some passengers along the quay alarmed the assailants of Larry, who, ere the iron grip released him, heard a deep curse in his ear growled by a voice ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
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... and months into years, slowly so far as concerned the progress of the war, but swiftly with regard to the growth of the country. Notwithstanding Continental money was becoming almost worthless, bountiful crops were raised and the greater part of the population were engaged ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
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... Monsieur Cagliostro says, scornfully, "You may look forward to fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You shall be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not the worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile; you shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and your race; and you shall return home over half a million of human corpses, that have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as great ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
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... reasons which have led to this work being published at all, the author would observe that he has been led to engage in it rather from a sense of duty, and at the instance of many of his friends, than from any wish of his own. The greater portion of the country he explored was of so sterile and worthless a description, and the circumstances which an attempt to cross such a desert region led to, were of so distressing a character, that he would not willingly have revived associations, so unsatisfactory ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
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... hated all this money, coming from nowhere, pouring in golden streams nowhere. He was not a revolutionist,—not even a socialist,—but there were times when he could have taken the neck of the Prince between his strong fingers and choked out his worthless life. These attacks of envy were short-lived—he could not ascribe them to the reading of the little hornet-like anarchist sheet, Pere Peinard, which the other waiters lent him; rather was it an excess of bile provoked by the coveted ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
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... when Shakespeare is said to have poached in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlescote, there were any deer or park at the place referred to. The subject is worthy of some scant attention, if only to show how worthless is the attempt to construct out of rumor the story of a great life which, fortunately perhaps, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
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... I have practically discarded," said Boise. "Right through here," and he put a broad forefinger on the map, "is a large stretch of worthless ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
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... "Knowest thou not, without it, worthless are All gentle bearing and all martial might? As there is nothing, howsoever fair, That can be seen without the aid of light. Easily mightest thou a maid ensnare, Lord as thou was, and idol in her sight. Her with thy honied words thou might'st have won, To deem that cold and darksome ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
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... with respect to us; for, in their general intercourse with one another, I had reason to be of opinion, that thefts do not happen more frequently (perhaps less so) than in other countries, the dishonest practices of whose worthless individuals are not supposed to authorise any indiscriminate censure on the whole body of the people. Great allowances should be made for the foibles of these poor natives of the Pacific Ocean, whose minds were overpowered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
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... fishing named W. Gilbert, "Gent." This gent produced a small work called the "Angler's Delight," and if the angler was delighted, he must have been very easily pleased. The book now sells for large sums, apparently because it is scarce, for it is eminently worthless. The gentle writer, instead of giving directions about fly-dressing, calmly tells his readers to go and buy his flies at a little shop "near Powle's." To the "Angler's Delight" this same W. Gilbert added a tract on "The Hackney River, and the best ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
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... no orders concerning anyone like him. He's only some worthless character hired for the job. He didn't have any hand in the bigger job of collecting and selling harbor defense plans, you may ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
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... Isle and other places were, with few exceptions, in a very sad plight, mentally and physically, having for months been exposed to all the changes of the weather, with no other protection than a very insufficient supply of worthless tents, and with an allowance of food scarcely sufficient to prevent starvation, even if of wholesome quality; but as it was made of coarsely-ground corn, including the husks, and probably at times the cobs, if it did not kill by starvation, it was sure to do it by the disease it created. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
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... shrieks rent the air. The crowd gave a long-drawn groan, and mothers turned their eyes away and shivered. Nobody followed Marm Lisa up that flaming path of death and duty: it was no use flinging a good life after a worthless one. ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
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... this policy would make the army "a machine," and it would be difficult to conceive of a more utterly worthless machine than it would have then been. It is highly probable that, under certain conditions, the Southern boys can be disciplined. If a few of them were caught up at a time, and were penned up in barracks for five or six years, so that a fair chance could be had at them, they might ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
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... his childhood Martin had shown himself of a worthless and cross-grained nature. His character at school was, that he was one of the cleverest and at the same time the most quarrelsome among the boys, and since then he had done nothing but fall foul of everything and everybody he came in contact with. Martin did most ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
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... and nearly all things, the nation wants—and they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make good this committal. Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in fact, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say: This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, held to your lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
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... to hunt beauty and goodness, if you take good aim and are perseverin'—if you jest track 'em and foller 'em stiddy from mornin' till night, and don't get led away a-follerin' up some other game, such as meanness and selfishness and other such worthless head o' cattle—why, at night you will come in with a sight of good game. You will be ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
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... are utterly powerless and worthless. The great body of the nation is adverse to all control, and in no degree submissive to the authority of those ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
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... hearers, who complained that they were almost driven out by this utterly cold, threadbare songlet (cantilena), being extremely chagrined that the ears of the Emperor should be molested with such a lengthy array of worthless things masquerading under the name of Catholic doctrines." (St. L. 21a, 1539.) August 4 Brenz wrote to Isemann: "The Emperor maintains neutrality; for he slept both when the Augustana and when the Confutation was read. Imperator neutralem sese gerit; nam cum nostra confessio legeretur ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
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... and nothing can refill it, for it is broken. I am out of the fray; I have no weapons left. Having thus utterly abandoned myself, what am I?—the leavings of a feast. I had but one name bestowed on me, Honorine, as I had but one heart. My husband had the young girl, a worthless lover had the woman—there is nothing left!—Then let myself be loved! that is the great idea you mean to utter to me. Oh! but I still am something, and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute! ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
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... her father's wealth. Mr. Ludolph fortunately discovered the state of affairs in time to prevent gossip. Under his remorseless logic, bitter satire, and ridicule her young dream was torn to shreds. The man whom she had surrounded with a halo of romance was shown to be worthless and commonplace. Her idol had chiefly been a creature of the imagination, and when the bald, repulsive truth concerning him had been proved to her in such a way that she could not escape conviction, she was equally disgusted ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
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... And now the bosom bleeds, and now it burns; Pity with weeping eye surveys her bowl, Her anger swells, her terror chills the soul; She makes the vile to virtue yield applause, And own her sceptre while they break her laws; For vice in others is abhorr'd of all, And villains triumph when the worthless fall. Not thus her sister COMEDY prevails, Who shoots at Folly, for her arrow fails; Folly, by Dulness arm'd, eludes the wound, And harmless sees the feather'd shafts rebound; Unhurt she stands, applauds the archer's skill, Laughs at her malice, and is Folly still. Yet well the Muse portrays, ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
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... livelihood above ground in the broad light of day; but, owing to some change in its surroundings, it was forced to burrow beneath the surface of the earth; consequently its organs of sight have degenerated, and are now practically worthless as far as vision is concerned. All moles, however, can tell darkness from light, consequently, are not wholly blind—a certain amount of sight remains. This is due to the fact that, although the optic nerve, on examination, is invariably found to be atrophied or wasted, there yet remain in the ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
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... council did not immediately acquiesce in his view, and thus for a time flattered the hope of the ada-wehi that they were resting in suspension on the details of this choice argument. There was an illogical inversion of values in the experience of the tribe, and while they could not now accept the worthless figments of long ago, it was not vouchsafed to them to enjoy the substantial merits of the new order of things. Reason, powder, diplomacy, had brought the Cherokee nation to a point of humiliation to which superstition, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
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... Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
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... most capricious thing in the world, the feeling most pre-eminently fickle, the thing which is worthless without its own spontaneous inspiration, which takes all its charm from the suddenness of its desires, which owes its attractions to the genuineness of its outbursts—this thing we call love, subjugated to a monastic rule, to that law of geometry ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
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... with distensible warts and horns, changing in colour as he walked, by an ingenious arrangement of versatile chromatophores. And no doubt, if Elizabeth's affection had not been already engaged by the worthless Denton, and if her tastes had not had that odd bias for old-fashioned ways, this extremely chic conception would have ravished her. Bindon had consulted Elizabeth's father before presenting himself in this garb—he was one of those men who always invite criticism of their ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
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... suffering and introduce a Golden Age. The Chinese peasantry, exploited by the gentry, came to the support of these monks whose Messianism gave the poor a hope in this world. The nomad tribes also, abandoned by their nobles in the capital and wandering in poverty with their now worthless herds, joined these monks. We know of many revolts of Hun and Toba tribes in this period, revolts that had a religious appearance but in reality were simply the result of the extreme impoverishment ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
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... foothills of the Bear Paws, to the north line of the Flying U, the chain of newly-filed claims remained unbroken. It had taken some careful work upon the part of the Happy Family to do this and still choose land not absolutely worthless except from a scenic viewpoint. But they had managed it, with some bickering and a good deal of maneuvering. Also they had hauled loads of lumber from Dry Lake, wherewith to build their monotonously modest ten-by-twelve ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
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... coursing among the affrighted herd, and launching their arrows with unerring aim. In the midst of the apparent confusion, they selected their victims with perfect judgment, generally aiming at the fattest of the cows, the flesh of the bull being nearly worthless, at this season of the year. In a few minutes, each of the hunters had crippled three or four cows. A single shot was sufficient for the purpose, and the animal, once maimed, was left to be completely dispatched at the end of the chase. Frequently, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
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... coward than a dead hero. As for the men above them, a Chinese officer admitted to a friend of mine that at the outbreak of the war with Japan, the army contractors bought a lot of old rifles in Germany, which had long before been discarded as worthless by the German army, paying two ounces of silver for each gun, and thriftily charging the Government nine ounces. Then they bought a cargo of cartridges that did not fit the guns and that had been lying in damp cellars for twenty ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
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... linen because greater strength is obtained with the same thickness. Always dry a line every time it is used, or it will soon rot and be worthless. The back of a chair is excellent for this purpose. Never tie a knot in a line that you expect to use with rod and reel. The knot will always catch in one of the guides just at the time when you are landing your ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
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... wife is a voluntary compact in which the one who proves weak is guilty only of perfidy; but when the wife is a mother her duty is a higher one, since nature has intrusted her with a race. If she fails then she is cowardly, worthless, infamous. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
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... creating "manliness." It was found during the American war that the soldiers who had been most accustomed to beating and to being beaten were by far the greatest cowards, and that "Billy Wilson's" regiment of pugilists was so absolutely worthless as to be unqualified for the field at any time. One thing is very certain, that I have found that boys who attend schools where there is no whipping, and little or no fighting, are freest from that coarseness which is so invariably ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
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... dreams that he is free in act; Naught is he but the powerless worthless plaything Of the blind force that in his will itself Works out for ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
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... her—Connor Mitchell for one. And he's a honest, steady fellow with a good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken Connor. She used to like him well enough. But that's all over. She's infatuated with King, the worthless scamp. She'll marry him and be sorry for it to her last day. He's bad clear through and always will be. Why, look you, Teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're courting a girl, no matter how wild they've been and will be ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
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... looked like a junk heap. "Well, it's in good shape, compared to the rest of the ship. The power deck has the rocket motors where the master panel should be and the panel is ready to go into what's left of the reactant chamber. The jet boat is nothing but a worthless ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
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... able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer(14) of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's "Life of Johnson," some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
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... extraordinary man, but he's a fool, really.... He doesn't know how to put two words together. He's simply an ignoramus. Though, indeed, I don't blame him much... he might suppose I was a giddy, mad, worthless girl. I hardly ever talked to him.... He did excite my curiosity, certainly, but I imagined that a man who was worthy of ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
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... Vinager instead of Spirit of Wine, wherewith he prepares it: For you would scarce Beleeve (what I have lately Observ'd) that of that acid Spirit, the Salt of Tartar, from which it is Distill'd, will by mortifying and retaining the acid Salt turn into worthless Phlegm neere twenty times its weight, before it be so fully Impregnated as to rob no more Distill'd Vinager of its Salt. And though Spirit of Wine Exquisitely rectify'd seem of all Liquors to be the most free from Water, it being so Igneous ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
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... tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus the indignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... friends, mostly ladies, were all eager, you see, to watch the dashing society man in so terrible a position. There was universal sympathy for Lady Arthur, who was in a very precarious state of health. Her worship of her worthless husband was well known; small wonder that his final and awful misdeed had practically broken her heart. The latest bulletin issued just after his arrest stated that her ladyship was not expected to live. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
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... tested in an indirect way. "Is your father a bad man?" or "Are your neighbours worthless people? Do they treat you with due respect? Has any one a spite against you? Are you fond of your parents? Are you aware that your brother (or mother) is seriously ill?" Questions concerning relatives and friends are of special interest, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
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... up raging from the confessional, clenched her hand, and screamed out in the still church, so that all the people shuddered with horror—"Ye are all my witnesses that this worthless priest has denied me absolution, because, forsooth, he says I killed the convent porter. Ha! ha! ha! Where is it said in your Scriptures that one man can pray another to death? But the licentiousness of the vile priest has turned his brain, and he wallows in all most ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
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... himself; Belvile, Wroughton; Blunt, Jack Bannister; Stephano, Suett; Hellena, Mrs. Jordan; Angelica, Mrs. Ward; Florinda, Mrs. Powell; Valeria, Mrs. Kemble; Lucetta, Miss Tidswell. It is not entirely worthless from a purely technical point of view, but yet very modest and mediocre. As might well be surmised, the raciness and spirit of The Rover entirely evaporate in the insipidity of emasculation. This is the last recorded performance of Mrs. Behn's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
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... saw the last of her wares disappearing; she admitted she forgot the proprieties and "cursed a little," but, curiously enough, she pronounced her malediction, not against the rain nor the conductor, nor yet against the worthless husband who had been set up to the city prison, but, true to the Chicago spirit of the moment, went to the root of the matter and roundly ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
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... know that it was German salt, which the Austrians bought in that country and on which they made an adequate profit. When the Yugoslavs wanted to get their supplies direct from Germany the Austrians introduced a transit tax of 1000 crowns—not the nearly worthless Austrian but Yugoslav crowns—per waggon. Later on when the Danube was thrown open and this tax could not be levied, salt was considerably cheaper in Yugoslavia than in Austria. So with plums—in 1919 Austria bought nearly the whole of the exports from Yugoslavia ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
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... requesting you to forward him at once a letter of mine which has come into your possession though I am at a loss to understand how. I have told Mr. Thompson that after all this time the letter is perfectly worthless, but he does not seem to be of that opinion. Accordingly I am troubling you by this request. Mr. Thompson will be at the Munroe Hotel, Cincinnati, from the twelfth to the fifteenth, and for the week following at the Hollenden ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
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... "William" had been a worthless, drunken man of the "down and out" sort. He had been converted at some mission and been radically changed. He had gotten employment at one of the freight-handling stations of this railroad system. It was rough, hard work, but he had gone at it earnestly ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
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... more fortunately," said the host. "Three hundred hams, one hundred casks of beer, butter, ammunition, and the most worthless of all spies into the bargain; always ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
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... Madame Hochon of what had happened, rushed to Issoudun, and was received by her brother, who gave her Philippe's former room. The poor mother's tenderness for the worthless son revived in all its maternal strength; a few happy days were hers at last, as she listened to the praises which the whole town bestowed upon ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
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... unscrupulous man. What words could sufficiently paint the baseness of the conduct of the accused! Was it not clear that he had endeavored to escape scot-free, at the sacrifice of this poor girl's good name? She, forsooth, was to proclaim herself thief, to save his worthless self! It was not for Mr. Smoothbore—Heaven forbid!—to exaggerate such wickedness, but was it possible that the phrase, "Young in years, but old in vice," had ever had a more appropriate application than in the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
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... cut the traitors off with the proverbial shilling. Beset with the notion that this was an ideal way to show his contempt for his offspring, he went to the safety deposit vault and took there from the worthless document known as his last will and testament and in the presence of witnesses destroyed the thing, thereby disinheriting the erstwhile wife and her children as effectually as if he had really possessed the estate ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
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... are only valuable when subject to the free control of those to whom they appertain, and utterly worthless if to be determined by the sword ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
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... I chose to rust out, and here I am, a miserable, worthless thing, whom no one can use or care for. Lift the ruffle, and behold a sad contrast to the faithful, honest, happy Granny, who has told us such a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
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... the ravages of the preceding night in cabbages of all ages and conditions, from the tender sprout to the full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet beds like worthless weeds, and left to wither in the sunshine. In vain Wolfert's wife remonstrated; in vain his darling daughter wept over the destruction of some favorite marigold. "Thou shalt have gold of another-guess[1] sort," he would cry, chucking her under the chin; "thou shalt have a string of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
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... by means of an adjustable thumb screw. The instrument is provided with a tracing and a marking point, and a screw or point which is forced into the drawing board to hold the instrument in position. A good pantograph will cost about two dollars; those of a cheaper grade are entirely worthless for practical use, while a good one will last a life time. A little experience will enable any one to learn ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
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... livelihood and separate them from their flocks. Such an act of mercy would vindicate the royal prerogative. Whether the King "thought it would do them no good," in other words, that he was giving a worthless concession, or that he thought the delay "no prejudice to the Church," or, as was more likely, that it would rid him of painful importunity, the desired promise was given. That it proceeded from any inclination to the Roman Catholic ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
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... up the United States mail train. Our readers are well aware of all the exciting episodes of that first garrison life, including the life and death fight that Hal Overton had with thieves while he was on sentry duty in officers' row, and of the efforts of one worthless character in the battalion to discredit and disgrace the service of both ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
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... exhortation to philosophy, and is called "Hortensius." But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself O Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. Every vain hope at once became worthless to me; and I longed with an incredibly burning desire for an immortality of wisdom, and began now to arise, that I might return to Thee. For not to sharpen my tongue (which thing I seemed to be purchasing with my mother's allowances, in that ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
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... Mr. Aylwin; the age is grovelling and gross. No wonder, then, that Art in our time has nothing but technical excellence; that it despises conscience, despises aspiration, despises soul, despises even ideas—that it is worthless, all worthless.' ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
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... General, looking about at the little audience. (It was in the smoking-room, and those present were smokers only.) "Well, now, take my case. I have some pretty valuable grounds down there where I live. When I got them, they were worthless. I could build as good a mansion as this or any of your ante-bellum Alabama houses for what I can get out of that little tract. What is that value? Merely the expression in terms of money of the power of excluding ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
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... her haughty ear, and coloured her pale cheek. Such accidents increased her early-formed asperity of thought; chilled the gushing flood of her young affections; and sharpened, with a relentless edge, her bitter and caustic hatred to a society she deemed at once insolent and worthless. To a taste intuitively fine and noble the essential vulgarities—the fierceness to-day, the cringing to-morrow; the veneration for power; the indifference to virtue, which characterised the framers and rulers of "society"—could not but bring contempt as well as anger; and amidst the brilliant ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... He turned sideways in the saddle, looking about him for a sign of remaining life. 'It grew in the night; somehow it has pinched out; the bottom has dropped out of it. Nate Kemble of Quigley bought up two or three claims; I've a notion the rest were worthless. Anyway, like many another of its kind, Sanchia's Town was born, has lived and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
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... that, if he effects any good, he must effect it by compromise; that he must relinquish many favourite schemes; that he must bear with many abuses. On the other hand, power turns the very vices of the most worthless adventurer, his selfish ambition, his sordid cupidity, his vanity, his cowardice, into a sort of public spirit. The most greedy and cruel wrecker that ever put up false lights to lure mariners to their destruction will do his best to preserve a ship from going ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... murmured: "How little do we know, when we set out in life, of the many disappointments before us! How little can we deem that the heart which then is ours will change with the fleeting sunshine! It is fearful to have the love of a life-time thrown back as a worthless thing!" ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
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... heresy of the "Alombrados" (Illuminati), which appeared in the sixteenth century, and was ruthlessly crushed by the Inquisition, belonged to the familiar type of degenerate Mysticism. Its adherents taught that the prayers of the Church were worthless, the only true prayer being a kind of ecstasy, without words or mental images. The "illuminated" need no sacraments, and can commit no sins. The mystical union once achieved is an abiding possession. There was another outbreak of the same errors in 1623, and a ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
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... She was looking at the carved, oaken stool, overthrown. She was wondering whether she could have acted with better judgment, spoken more wisely. Her heart was sore. Such noble natures ever blame themselves for the wrong-doing of the worthless. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
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... to Unyanyembe. A sultana called Ungugu governs this district. She is the first and only female that we have seen in this position, though she succeeded to it after the custom of the country. I imagine she must have had a worthless husband, since every sultan can have as many wives as he pleases, and the whole could never have been barren. I rallied the porters for pulling up after so short a march, but could not induce them to go on. They declared that ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
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... search killed that idea. There were no tools aboard capable of cutting through the hard shielding. He couldn't use it to shield the engine on the lifeboat. And the shielding that been on the other five engines had melted and run; it was worthless. ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett
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... become a man in the sordid sense of the word. He had taken his father-in-law sternly in hand, presented the case firmly, and showed him the extent of the sacrifice his worthless life had made necessary. He paid from that day the normal income to the Misses Ellwell's bankers, but he gave the stock-broker to understand that was the end. Any further protection for him was not to be found in ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
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... and lack of nourishment, and for these reasons have failed to throw off the yolk necessary to feed the wool. As a result it becomes matted or felted together, and is hard and brittle and almost worthless. ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
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... north coast (now Alaska). Before the invention of steam cars and the construction of railroads, the Pacific coast region had been thought of little value. The popular idea was expressed by Webster when he said: "What do we want of this vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs?" But now the United States was waking up, and things looked different. Of Oregon the Americans were determined to have at least a portion. California, ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
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... scurried through the streets in jinrikisha toward the Uyeno railway station. We had been a little behindhand in starting, but by extra exertions on the part of the runners we succeeded in reaching the station just in time to be shut out by the gatekeeper. Time having been the one thing worthless in old Japan, it was truly sarcastic of fate that we should reach our first goal too late. As if to point chagrin, the train still stood in waiting. Remonstrances with the wicket man about the imported ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
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... sums for charities. On the other hand we have the archimandrate Radi['c], who ruled several monasteries in succession; he never drove with less than four horses in his carriage and he drove so recklessly that between eight and sixteen horses were rendered worthless every year. The Radical party desired, after paying fixed salaries to the archimandrates and monks, to give two-thirds of the rest to clerical funds and one-third to schools. But the Austro-Hungarian Government had an understanding with the clerical party and prevented the public ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
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... The Quakers had little reason to complain. But the indulgence vouchsafed to the Presbyterians, who constituted the great body of the Scottish people, was clogged by conditions which made it almost worthless. For the old test, which excluded Catholics and Presbyterians alike from office, was substituted a new test, which admitted the Catholics, but excluded most of the Presbyterians. The Catholics were allowed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... two different ways: first, by the high price of goods, which, in the case of a free trade, they could buy much cheaper; and, secondly, by their total exclusion from a branch of business which it might be both convenient and profitable for many of them to carry on. It is for the most worthless of all purposes, too, that they are taxed in this manner. It is merely to enable the company to support the negligence, profusion, and malversation of their own servants, whose disorderly conduct seldom allows the dividend ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
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... "Extracting what you know would be less than the play of a child," he said. "No, Terran. We can know what you know in the turn of a dial. What we need is that which you do not know. Laugh? Or is that a sneer? No matter. What you know is worthless. Your problems and your ambitions, both racial and personal, are minor. We know them already. The pattern is repetitive, only some of the ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
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... persons in the nation.—Is it, then, better that the lives of one hundred and forty thousand aged persons be rendered comfortable, or that a million a year of public money be expended on any one individual, and him often of the most worthless or insignificant character? Let reason and justice, let honour and humanity, let even hypocrisy, sycophancy and Mr. Burke, let George, let Louis, Leopold, Frederic, Catherine, Cornwallis, or Tippoo Saib, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
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... handled these Scriptures, quoted from them, found inspired teaching in them; but the Scriptures which they chiefly handled, from which they generally quoted, in which they found their inspired teaching, contained, as we know, worthless matter. It is not to be assumed that they did not know this matter to be worthless; and if they knew this, it is not to be asserted that they intended to place upon the whole of it the stamp of ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
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... secret, if I were you," she said earnestly. "Poor lassie! it's always a handicap to a girl to be received for what she has, rather than what she is. And there are two or three idle, worthless young men hanging about, who might be only too glad to pick up a rich wife. I should simply announce that I was expecting a niece from the United States of America, to pay me a visit of some months' duration, and offer no enlightenment as to her circumstances. You ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
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... sometimes it was like stringing sharp beads on a red-hot wire. I suppose that sounds foolish? But when his mother disinherited him, I knew I would have to go on—stringing beads. Because it would have been mean, then, to leave him. You see that, David? Besides, I was a spoiled thing, a worthless thing. If staying with him would make up for the harm I had done him,—Mrs. Maitland told me I had injured him; why of course, there was nothing else to do. I knew you would understand. So I stayed. 'Unkind to me?'" She bent forward a little ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
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... governor was dependent on any more legislation to carry this into effect so as to enable him to fill his office. If he were, it would then become necessary to legislate about every other article, and so the constitution would be worthless, everything being required to be done over by the legislature before the constitution could have ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
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... pamphlet, pasquinade, and parody, until at last Lord Bute withdrew from the contest in disgust, and suspended the organ over which the author of Roderick Random presided. The satirical effusions of this epoch are almost entirely worthless, the only redeeming feature being the fact that Goldsmith was at that very moment engaged in throwing off those delicious morceaux of social satire contained in The Citizen of the World. Johnson, a few years before, had set the fashion ...
— English Satires • Various
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... did I say? Sir, do you know what that—first—kiss was to me? Had I possessed all the crowns of all the earth I would have given them to you as willingly. Now you know the value I placed on it, however worthless it was to you. Yet I was a cheerful giver of that great gift, was I not? And can you find it in your heart to make of it a shame to me—that of which ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
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... now I left her here, Guarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed Up yonder steep for this most worthless rose:— Know you not where she is? Did you forget Ceres' behest, and thus forsake ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
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... curled slightly. "Oh, I know the sort of thing," he said. "I've heard of it before. Very inferior stones, quite small and worthless, produced at immense cost, and even then not worth looking at. I'm an old bird, you know, Cordery; not to be caught with chaff. Tell ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
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... little parcels of letters, each carefully labeled with the name of the writer; fragments of old newspapers; and a little heap of shabby, dilapidated books, each of which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards in Robert's incautious hand. But among all the mass of worthless litter, each scrap of which had once had its separate purpose, Robert Audley looked in vain for that which he sought—the packet of letters written to the missing man by his dead wife Helen Talboys. He had heard George allude more ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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... more than I do any differences between old friends; but my duty is to look solely to the consistency and integrity of the 'Review,' without which criticism is worthless; and this consideration ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
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... means worthless, Alice; not if I see you take that place in the world which I hope to see you fill. Do you think women nowadays have no bearing upon the politics of the times? Almost as much as men have." In answer to which Alice shook her head; but, nevertheless, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
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... any considerable degree, are simply exhaustive. This is another blunder of the "big-muscle" men. They seem to think you can determine every man's constitution and health by the tape-line; and that all exercises whose results are not determinable by measurement are worthless. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
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... the body of the lynx and the poor little carcass of the hare. The former none of our adventurers cared to eat, although it is often eaten both by the trappers and Indians—and the latter was so torn and chawed as to render it worthless. So, since no other game—not even a squirrel—could be found about the place, all four—Lucien, Basil, Francois, and Marengo, went to sleep—for the first time since the commencement ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
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... interest in the chunk of gold in his hand, he listened intently and he heard the breathing of the thing behind him. His eyes searched the ground in front of him for a weapon, but they saw only the uprooted gold, worthless to him now in his extremity. There was his pick, a handy weapon on occasion; but this was not such an occasion. The man realized his predicament. He was in a narrow hole that was seven feet deep. His head did not come to the surface of the ground. He ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
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... where the shadows lie all day long, other and darker shadows may fall; and such a shade now touched Glory's shoulder as she pictured in words the charm of that blessed asylum to which the captain and she would one day repair. He had always fixed the time to be "when he got too old and worthless to earn his living." But that morning she had swiftly reasoned that since he had grown cross—a new thing in her experience—he must also have suddenly become aged and that the day of their departure might be ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
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... smooth nights we sail, And constant Jove supplied the gentle gale. The seventh, the fraudful wretch (no cause descried), Touch'd by Diana's vengeful arrow, died. Down dropp'd the caitiff-corse, a worthless load, Down to the deep; there roll'd, the future food Of fierce sea-wolves, and monsters of the flood. An helpless infant I remain'd behind; Thence borne to Ithaca by wave and wind; Sold to Laertes by divine command, And now adopted to a ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
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... can well believe that thirty dollars of good American chink one day in the Soviet part of Russia bought an American newspaper man one million paper roubles of the Lenine-Trotsky issue, and that before night, spending his money at the famine prices in the worthless paper, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
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... knife does good. Yes, I know I've been worthless. But I'm not as bad as that. Don't you see how horrible the idea is to me? I must pay you back the money—and of course not come on you for any more. You've done too much for me already. It sometimes ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
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... bearing early in November, and continued to bear a good crop until the first of May. After that time, no matter what the crop may be, the mushrooms become so infested with maggots as to be perfectly worthless, and they are cleared out. It is on account of the large body of manure in the bed, and the low, genial, and equable temperature of the cellar that the beds in this house always continue so long ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
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... morning of taking the earring, that she was the guilty one. Understand me, she didn't mean to steal. She didn't look upon it as theft. She only took a fancy to the bauble, and appropriated it without really thinking it wrong. As a child would take a worthless little ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
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... circumstances? how Ivanhoe, my chosen companion in all quests of knightly enterprise? how—to come to modern times—Jack Harkaway, mere schoolboy though he might be? Would not one and all have welcomed such incident with a joyous shout, and in a trice have scattered to the winds the worthless herd? ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
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... moment the bond is severed. On the one side is devotion to the country, and a firm, secure currency, which at any moment will bring its full value in gold; on the other, secession, with the inevitable attendant of a circulation, not depreciated, but utterly worthless, and that, too, with no other to fill its place, since the operation of the law must soon drive out of existence every dollar of the present local bank circulation: patriotism and prosperity arrayed against rebellion and ruin. The business men all see ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
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... into it, the medicine is worthless," he explained. "The words are the chiefest strength of it. Behold, it ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
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... you put it down! You could not be more careful were it a case of relics. Is it that you are afraid of tearing a hole in your rags? Worthless vagabond! in the streets at this hour! Who are you? Answer! But no. I forbid you to answer. There! You are cold. Warm yourself as quick as you can," and he shoved him by the shoulders in ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
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... my mind, and conscience, and body. You bid me pray. O, I do pray inwardly to be able to pray; but indeed to pray, to pray with a faith to which a blessing is promised, this is the reward of faith, this is the gift of God to the elect. Oh! if to feel how infinitely worthless I am, how poor a wretch, with just free-will enough to be deserving of wrath, and of my own contempt, and of none to merit a moment's peace, can make a part of a Christian's creed; so far I am ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
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... and says, "the Italian artists counterfeit my works in the churches and wherever else they can find them, and yet they blame them, and declare that as they are not in accordance with ancient art they are worthless."[223-[]] But though subjected to the slights of the unworthy, Duerer gratefully records the nobler acts of nobler men, and notes that Giovanni Bellini publicly praised him before many gentlemen, "so that I am full of affection for him." This noble ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
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... type of war. Almost universally we have the wrong men in our places of responsibility and the right men in no place at all, almost universally we have poorly qualified, hesitating, and resentful subordinates, because our criticism is worthless and, so habitually as to be now almost unconsciously, dishonest. Germany is beating England in every matter upon which competition is possible, because she attended sedulously to her collective mind for sixty pregnant years, because in spite ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
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... the rebel party. He called to the minds of Ferdinand and Isabella his own eager desire to return to San Domingo sooner, and ascribed the difficulties which had arisen, in large measure, to his long delay. He said he should send home the more worthless men by every ship. ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
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... Summerbee's enforced spinsterhood move one to so personal a concern. From the moment when Norah and Tom enter their little house after the short honeymoon to that in which the tormented young wife finally leaves her worthless husband for the protection (word rightly used) of his long-suffering friend one is made to feel that exactly thus and thus the affair happened, and is happening to like persons every day. As for Letty, with her restraint, her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
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... sudden sadness passing over her fine features, and her eyes filling with tears, "I ought the rather to hold sympathy with thy kind heart, that my own poor father is uncertain of my fate, and they say lies sick and sorrowful for my worthless sake! But I will soon cheer him—the news of my happiness and advancement will make him young again. And that I may cheer him the sooner"—she wiped her eyes as she spoke—"I must be cheerful myself. My lord must not find me insensible to his kindness, or ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
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... Anglicanism. Maryland under William and Mary. English Church Established. Not Oppressive. Fate of Virginia after the Restoration. Virginia's Spirit, Numbers, Resources. Causes of Bacon's Rebellion. Evil of the Navigation Acts. Worthless Officials. Course of the Rebellion. Result. Dulness of the Subsequent History. William and Mary College. Governor Spotswood. Blackbeard. Carolina. Its Constitution. Conflict ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
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... adventurous spirits who were by common consent held to be its legitimate victims, but carried off also old and infirm men, chronic invalids, and, stranger still, such shiftless, incompetent and altogether worthless cumberers of the ground as this Doctor Hanchett; thus proving itself to be, like most other contagions, a not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
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... some hours, he had sustained a frightful shock, and he had lost considerable blood. I am sure that in the hands of any physician less skilled and determined than Westmoreland he must have gone out. But Westmoreland, with his jaw set, followed his code and fenced with death for this apparently worthless and forfeited life, using all his skill and finesse to outwit the great Enemy; in spite of which, so attenuated was the man's chance that we were astonished when he turned the corner—very, very feebly—and we didn't have to place another ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
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... dream? You dreamed perhaps that I forgot both wisdom and affection, when, for the sake of this worthless beast, Briareus, I drew you into ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
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... opinion, your time being worthless and it being of little moment where you spend it. I have ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
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... while this flesh her breath expires, My spirit shall suck celestial fires By deep-fetched sighs and pure devotion. Thus waxen hot with holy motion, At once I'll break forth in a flame; Above this world and worthless fame I'll take my flight, careless that men Know not how, ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
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... a gang—Shtromberg's in ut, an' a Frinch cruiser named Lebolt, an' a boot-leggin' tree-spotter named Creed, that lives in Hilarity, an' a couple av worthless divils av sawyers that's too lazy fer honest wor-rk, but camps t'rough th' winter, trappin' an sawin' bird's-eye an calico ash ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
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... bent on securing any money that he could obtain without work, proposed to Arturo that he should buy a certain watch-chain owned by himself. Manuel, who knew that the showy thing was worthless, tried to picture how a fine-looking boy like Arturo would appear with so gorgeous an ornament. The younger boys listened enviously, and Arturo's Spanish love of display began to glow. Yet he was cautious enough to put off Manuel till the next day. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
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... of potatoes, but it is at a terrible discount, and the day is fast coming when it will be regarded as of no more value than so many pieces of brown paper; and its depreciation, and the prospect of its soon becoming utterly worthless, are among the chief consequences of the triumphs of our arms. Men see that there will be no power to make payment, and they will not part with their property for rags so rotten. They may wish success to the Confederate cause, but "they must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
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... any other way readily grow under artificial heat from single-eyes. Well-grown vines so propagated are as good as those grown by any other method, but the great disadvantage is that unless much care and skill are used, vines from these cuttings are poor and quite worthless. It is also a more expensive method than growing from long ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
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... continents for twelve years. For twelve years he had taken no part in the existence of the cities he had passed, as often as possible without stopping, and of the villages gathered invitingly under their canopies of trees. He was—yes, he must be—forty-six. Life was passing away; well, let it ... worthless. ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
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... slave-trader is the true Union man [cheers and laughter], I tell you that the slave-trading of Virginia is more immoral, more unchristian in every possible point of view, than that African slave-trade which goes to Africa and brings a heathen and worthless man here, christianizes him, and sends him and his posterity down the stream of time to enjoy the blessings of civilization.... It has been my fortune to go into that noble old State to buy a few darkies, and I have had to pay from $1000 to $2000 a head, when I could go to Africa ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
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... persons among them who spat upon the Flag that protected their worthless lives, and cut it down; sworn servants of the State who openly proclaimed their sympathy with the State's enemies; carefully protected, highly privileged subjects of the Crown, who impishly slashed at England's robes, to show her ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
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... will make the circumstances clear. The controversy was entirely about the account of a particular action in the war of 1812, and a work containing over fifty chapters was absolutely condemned as partisan and worthless for what was found on a ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
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... is novel in this wonderland that it is hard to keep cool and look at all sides. In 1870 all vegetables and grain were imported. Mr. Webster declared long ago in Congress that California was absolutely worthless except for mining and grazing. The rancheros thought the land only fit for sheep to roam over. Now great train-loads of vegetables and grain leave daily for the East; all the earliest fruit of ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
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... enormous bag of small change. She was quite upset at my refusal to part with the note; and we haggled for a quarter of an hour about whether she would give me, roughly, sixteen shillingsworth of Turkish silver for a piece of worthless paper, or whether she would accept five piastres Egyptian in exchange for a hatful ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
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... hatreds—of bad passions—of vile interests and desires. I say that I have nothing left to do among the creatures whom God created my fellow mortals; I have no more tears, no more blood in my heart; no more thoughts—they are dead. I am a worthless offering, for in renouncing the world I sacrifice nothing, neither desires nor hopes; but such as I am I offer myself to my God, and he will accept me—he who has made me suffer so much, and yet kept me ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
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... not know which way to turn. Pay? We can not pay a farthing of all the millions of obligation. Well, Christ comes in and says: "Here is My name; you can use My name. Your name would be worthless, but My red handwriting on the back of this obligation will get you through anywhere." Now suppose the soul says: "I know I am in debt; I can't meet these obligations either in time or eternity; but, oh, Christ, I want not Thy help; I ask not Thy rescue. Go away from me." You would say: "That man, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
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... as it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away—I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in an increase, had that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship with which ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
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... Catherine half aloud. "That is infinitely better. I wish I dared throw half of these papers away. I know they're perfectly worthless." She took a step toward the big wire basket, as though to ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
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... bait like a trout in the Bonaparte, and made a deposit of five thousand dollars. Shortly afterwards the company went into liquidation, and his six thousand dollars sailed away with the worthless liquid into ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
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... the nomination of the officers of his army, has asserted, "that the necessity of the reservation arose from a too well known defect in the Nabob's character: if this check be withdrawn, and the choice left absolutely to the Nabob, the first commands in his army will be filled with the most worthless and abandoned of his subjects: his late commander-in-chief is a signal and ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
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... disobedience. Partial obedience is complete disobedience. Saul and his men obeyed as far as suited them; that is to say, they did not obey God at all, but their own inclinations, both in sparing the good and in destroying the worthless. What was not worth carrying off they destroyed,—not because of the command, but to save trouble. This one fault seems but a small thing to entail the loss of a kingdom. But is it so? It was obviously not an isolated act on Saul's part, but indicated ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
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... my duty," he answered, quietly. "And yet I thank you truly. You also may see the time when you will thank me more than when I interposed my worthless person between ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
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... the mud all day, as harmless as a pigeon; I hunt no man, yet every time a man sees me, he throws stones at me, and pokes me with sharp sticks, and jeers at me. Men are a worthless lot. Let the Tiger ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
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... mothers, sisters, wives, and children, or ourselves, into hopeless servitude, there to weary out a miserable life, a relief from which, death would be hailed with joy. Heaven and earth—God and Humanity!—are not these sufficient to arouse the most worthless among mankind, of whatever descent, to a sense of their true position? These laws apply to us—shall ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
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... as Jew-haters by profession are concerned, it is running a risk to recommend the study of Jewish history to them, without adding a word of caution. Its effect upon them might be disastrous. They might find themselves cured of their modern disease, and in the possession of ideas that would render worthless their whole stock in trade. Verily, he must have fallen to the zero-point of anti-Semitic callousness who is not thrilled through and through by the lofty fortitude, the saint-like humility, the trustful resignation to the will of God, the stoic firmness, laid bare by the study of Jewish ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
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... so carefully thought out and so clearly expressed that they may still be looked on as models. He is entirely free from that circumlocution and involved style which makes so much diplomatic correspondence almost worthless. His arguments are always clear, complete, concise. He used to work long into the night, and then, when in the early morning the post to Berlin had gone, he would mount his horse and ride out into the country. It was in these years that he formed ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
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... money was returned, and the bank left without a dollar in its vaults, if, indeed, it had a vault about its premises. The result was, that banks were started all over the Western States, and the country flooded with worthless paper. These were known as the "Wild Cat Banks." Silver coin being very scarce, and the banks not being allowed to issue notes for a smaller amount than one dollar, several persons put out notes from 6 to 75 cents in value; these were ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
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... the one to thwart me most; and I did not forgive. I left her to pine for the luxuries to which she was accustomed from her birth, and could not then procure. She was delicate. I let her wear her heart out waiting for a worthless pardon. And what a heart it was! Then I would not forgive; now—now I crave forgiveness. Oh, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
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... meagre, rust-stained, weather-worried face, Where care-filled creatures tug and delve to keep a worthless race; And glean, begrudgedly, by all their unremitting toil, Sour, scanty bread and fevered water from the ungrateful soil; Made harder by their gloom than flints that gash their harried hands, And harder in the things they call their hearts than wolfish bands, Perpetuating faults, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
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... partridges down. They knew him of old, and he was coming now to know them well. That great copper-ruffed cock was becoming famous up and down the valley. During the Gunner Moon many a one had tried to end his splendid life, just as a worthless wretch of old sought fame by burning the Ephesian wonder of the world. But Redruff was deep in woodcraft. He knew just where to hide, and when to rise on silent wing, and when to squat till overstepped, then rise on thunder ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
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... wrinkles of old age. Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,—the patron and promoter of frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless mountebank. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
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... civilization will be during the coming years. There are mighty forces operating in the world today. If they succeed in bringing humanity to a saner, more normal state of mind, to a clearer realization of what is worth while and what is worthless, then all art will become purer and more wholesome, more helpful and necessary, and music speaking a language common to all will be supreme among ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
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... to a field in which thought has ever found language inadequate, and are for the present, so far as may be judged from the reviews of Truth and Error, largely misunderstood. Admitting myself to be of those who fail to understand much of his philosophy, I do not therefore condemn it as worthless, for in other fields of his thought events have proved that he was not visionary, but merely ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
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