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Unfit   Listen
verb
Unfit  v. t.  To make unsuitable or incompetent; to deprive of the strength, skill, or proper qualities for anything; to disable; to incapacitate; to disqualify; as, sickness unfits a man for labor; sin unfits us for the society of holy beings.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books



... pleasant garden, was, as every one knew, a private asylum and sanatorium conducted by Dr. Legrand. He had come there half a dozen years ago, and for some time there had been only a few inmates, not dangerously insane, but unfit to be at large, and two or three others who had retired into this retreat to end their days in peace. In the last few months, however, the number of residents had vastly increased. Certainly every room in the house must be occupied, the larger rooms probably divided into two or ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... nowadays to a great deal of puling over the circumstances in which we are placed. The great refinement of many poetical gentlemen has rendered them practically unfit for the jostling and ugliness of life, and they record their unfitness at considerable length. The bold and awful poetry of Job's complaint produces too many flimsy imitators; for there is always something consolatory in grandeur, but the symphony ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sepoys were morally unfit for travel, and then we had hard lines, all of us. Food was not to be had for love or money. Our finest cloths only brought miserable morsels of the common grain. I trudged it the whole way, and having no animal food save what turtle-doves and guinea-fowls we occasionally shot, I became like ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... with an eye quick enough to catch the point where the traces of his hand break off; but I should now be inclined to guess rather that on reconsideration of the subjects chosen he had rejected or dismissed them for a time at least as unfit for dramatic handling. It could have needed no great expenditure of reasoning or reflection to convince a man of lesser mind and less experience than Shakespeare's that no subject could possibly be more unmanageable, more indomitably improper for such a purpose, than he had selected in Timon ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... perhaps, in more disorderly acts, and, consequently, greater trouble. Then, on my own part, such a deviation must be perfect suicide, so far as the plan might be concerned, showing the authorities conclusively that I was unfit for the position, and giving them the most urgent reasons for putting ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... feared Dickinson might have things to tell his mistress which were not fit for a little boy's ears. This last address had disconcerted the young mother sadly, and cost her some tears; for she was as innocent as Geoff, and the idea that there were in the village things to tell her that were unfit for the child's ears threw her into daily terror, not only for him, but for herself. This was one of the things that made it apparent that a new rule was necessary. Her business grew day by day, as she began to understand it better, and the lessons fell ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... always was, that an intelligence never carried out into action could not be worth much; and that, if all the action of human life was of a character so tainted as to be unfit for women, it could be no better for men, and we ought all to sit down together, to let ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... is a genuine little savage, doubtless, but I value him as a neighbor. It is a satisfaction during the cold or stormy winter nights to know he is warm and cosy there in his retreat. When the day is bad and unfit to be abroad in; he is there too. When I wish to know if he is at home, I go and rap upon his tree, and, if he is not too lazy or indifferent, after some delay he shows his head in his round doorway about ten feet above, and looks down inquiringly upon me—sometimes latterly I think ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... we have attained a biological history can we have any satisfactory conception of environment. As we look about us in the world, environment often seems to us to be a chaos of forces aiding or destroying good and bad, fit and unfit, alike. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... skipper's polite bow she happened to notice the poor wounded sailors lying on the cushions by the companion, and the blood all sprinkled about—a sight at which she turned up her nose, declaring very volubly that the place was like a "pigsty," unfit for any lady to enter, and expressing her surprise at those "common seamen" being attended to and allowed to remain in the saloon, she having always understood that that apartment was only for "the use of the ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... medicines, and surgeons, ought not to have occurred. Indignation swept the country when it was charged that Commissary-General Eagan had furnished soldiers quantities of beef treated with chemicals and of canned roast beef unfit for use. A commission appointed to investigate found that "embalmed beef" had not been given out to any extent. Canned roast beef had been, and the commission declared ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... Unanimity is wonderful Uncertain, coy, and hard to please Uncle, O my prophetic soul I my Underneath this stone doth lie —sable hearse Uneasy lies the head Unfit, for all things Unfortunate, one more Unity, to dwell together in Universe, born for the Unknown, too early seen —, argues yourselves Unseen, born to blush Unwept, unhonored and unsung Unwhipped of justice Uses, to what base Utterance of the ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... near unto His Majesty's Wardrobe, and for that purpose have lately erected and made fit a building, which is almost if not fully finished. You shall understand that His Majesty hath this day expressly signified his pleasure that the same shall be pulled down, so as it be made unfit for any such use; whereof we require your Lordship to take notice and to cause it to be performed accordingly, with all speed, and thereupon to certify us of ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... When the lords who came to her, fell on their knees before her, and told her what tidings they brought, she was so astonished that she fainted. On recovering, she expressed her sorrow for the young King's death, and said that she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom; but that if she must be Queen, she prayed God to direct her. She was then at Sion House, near Brentford; and the lords took her down the river in state to the Tower, that she ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... all passages unfit for a boy to read, and renumbered all the lines in text and references, and it seemed best not to put the old numbering side by side with the new, except in the Grammatical Appendices. It has been necessary ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... the chief flagships, or other flagships shall happen to be so much disabled as that they shall be unfit for present service, in such a case any chief flag officer may go on board any other ship of his own squadron, as he shall judge most convenient; and any other flag officer, in that case, may go on board any ship in ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... end. Yet as their power receded, their language became the more peremptory, and their contempt for other groups the more bitter. One of the most respectable of the group, J. S. Cartwright, frankly confessed that he thought his fellow-colonists unfit for any extension of self-government "in a country where almost universal suffrage prevails, where the great mass of the people are uneducated, and where there is but little of that salutary influence which hereditary rank and great wealth exercise in Great Britain."[60] Their position ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... best not to go forward till some roads had been made, so that the army wagons could be sent on; but General Shafter thought it would be best to march on at once. He feared that after a week or ten days in that climate many of our men might have fever and be unfit for service. So, even before all the men had landed, General Shafter ordered the first ones to go forward and drive the Spaniards from a place near Siboney. Thus, some of our troops began their march just ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes

... national laws, and were therefore free to ratify any laws they liked, or to make new ones, and were at liberty to set up a government and occupy a territory wherever they chose. However, they were entirely unfit to frame a wise code of laws and to keep the sovereign power vested in the community; they were all uncultivated and sunk in a wretched slavery, therefore the sovereignty was bound to remain vested in the hands of one man who would rule the rest and keep them under constraint, make laws and interpret ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... our young men. We comb out our mines and shipyards, and factories, ceaselessly for more men. Our boys at eighteen go into the army. From eighteen to forty-one every man is liable for service. Our Universities have only a handful of men in them and these are the disabled, the unfit, and men from other countries. Oxford and Cambridge Colleges are full of Officers' Training Corps men. The Examination Schools and the Town Hall at Oxford are Hospitals, and Oxford and Cambridge streets are full of the blue-clad wounded, ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... for worse; painfully alive to his defects of temper and deficiency in charm; resolute to make up for these; thinking last of himself: Fleeming was in some ways the very man to have made a noble, uphill fight of an unfortunate marriage. In other ways, it is true, he was one of the most unfit for such a trial. And it was his beautiful destiny to remain to the last hour the same absolute and romantic lover, who had shown to his new bride the flag-draped vessels in the Mersey. No fate is altogether easy; but trials are our ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that had the color of jewels in them. I listened to the night birds. I heard the wind soughing—the mules and horses stamping—the murmur of men's voices. My tongue itched to say some foolish word, that would have proved me unfit to be trusted out of sight. But the thought came to me to be still and listen. And still I remained until ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... who had been a soldier a considerable portion of his life, confesses that he could not look on a water-cress without shuddering, and remarks: "I, who despise not only iron, but even thunderbolts, who in two sieges (in one of which I commanded) was the only one who did not complain of the food as unfit and horrible to eat, am seized with such a shuddering horror at the sight of a water-cress that I am forced to go away." One of his children was in the same plight as regards the inoffensive vegetable, cabbage. Scaliger also speaks of one of his kinsmen who fainted at the sight of a lily. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... /S/udras also have such a claim, because they may be in the position of desiring that knowledge, and because they are capable of it; and because there is no scriptural prohibition (excluding them from knowledge) analogous to the text, 'Therefore[220] the /S/udra is unfit for sacrificing' (Taitt. Sa/m/h. VII, 1, 1, 6). The reason, moreover, which disqualifies the /S/udras for sacrificial works, viz. their being without the sacred fires, does not invalidate their qualification for knowledge, as knowledge can be apprehended ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... that she must do whatever her grandmother said. But when Ellen had left the room, which she did immediately, he took the matter up. Mrs. Lindsay explained, and insisted that Ellen was spoiling herself for life and the world by a set of dull religious notions that were utterly unfit for a child; that she would very soon get over thinking about her habit of morning prayer, and would then do much better. Mr. Lindsay looked grave; but with Ellen's tears yet wet upon his cheek, he could not dismiss ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... and corner of the South there comes a cry that the Negro as a laborer is unsatisfactory. It is said that he is inefficient, unreliable, indolent, lazy, in short, that he is unfit to do the work the South wants done. Less than two decades ago it was just the opposite. Then, it was said that the Negro was unfit for everything else except work. How inconsistent! We admit that there is a labor problem ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards

... occasioned chiefly by the necessity of keeping step with the accelerated pace in naval armament which Germany began to set at that time. In July, 1905, Lord Roberts made a speech in the House of Lords in which he called the attention of the country to the fact that the English army was unfit for war both in members and equipment and training. In August, 1905, the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 was modified to conform to the new conditions that had been created by the Russo-Japanese War. The terms of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... of the youngsters, to whom he was a most inordinate tyrant. He could judge a day's work, which he sent in with the rest of the midshipmen, and which proofs of theoretical knowledge of their profession were in those days little attended to; but he was very ignorant, and quite unfit to take charge of any vessel. Captain M—-, who, as we before stated, had joined the ship as acting captain, and had not had time to ascertain the merits or demerits of the officers, had given the prize to his charge because he was the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrows; but, ah! it empties to-day of its strength. It does not enable you to escape the evil, it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes. It does not bless to-morrow, but it robs to-day. For every day has its own burden. Sufficient for each day is the evil which properly belongs to it. Do not add to-morrow's to to-day's. Do not drag the future into the present. The present has enough to do with its own ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... most we can do is to give some of their interesting incidents. In 1502 the Great Captain lay in the far south of Italy, faced by a more powerful French army under the Duke of Nemours, a young nobleman not wanting in courage, but quite unfit to cope with the experienced veteran before him. Gonsalvo, however, was in no condition to try conclusions with his well-appointed enemy. His little corps was destitute of proper supplies, the men had been so long unpaid that they were ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... "discharge" the job-holder, and by throwing him out of work take away his chance of earning a living. While he keeps the job-holder on his payroll, he may pay him impossibly low wages and overwork him under conditions that are unfit for the maintenance of decent human life. Barring the factory laws and the health laws, he is at liberty to impose on the job-holder any form of treatment that ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... Sub-Prior's estimation. He even felt an aversion to profit by the resignation of the Abbot Boniface, and in a manner to rise on his ruins; but this sentiment did not long contend with those which led him to recollect higher considerations. It could not be denied that Boniface was entirely unfit for his situation in the present crisis; and the Sub-Prior felt that he himself, acting merely as a delegate, could not well take the decisive measures which the time required; the weal of the Community therefore demanded his elevation. If, besides, there crept in a feeling of a high dignity obtained, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... us, they instantly weighed anchor and came directly to meet us. Two of our boats were very heavy and could not row as fast as the canoes, and accordingly we were already far in advance. There were five canoes in this company, and among them only thirty-six men in a very unfit condition to fight, being tired and worn with so much rowing. The enemy sailed toward us directly before the wind, and we feared greatly lest they should run us down. So we rowed straight up into the "wind's eye," as the sailors say, and got close to windward of them. While we were doing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... can in any way render the room unpleasant. Medicines, drink, or nourishment should never be left uncovered in the sick-room, since they quickly absorb the gaseous emanations from the patient, and become unfit for the purpose which they were intended to serve. Their presence gives the room an untidy appearance, suggestive of filth and slovenliness, and imparts to the patient a feeling of loathing and disgust for ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... on our way, we noticed half a dozen Turkish warships lying in the stream near by. One who claimed to know said that the Turkish naval vessels had been gathering barnacles and mussels for four years and were unfit for active service. But the fortresses guarding the strait, he said, were in excellent condition and well equipped with batteries of ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... unconstitutional.—If you heard this asserted with much confidence by a lawyer, you would say he had studied special pleading rather than the British constitution.—If you heard this doctrine swallowed implicitly by an assembly of legislators, you would say they were still unfit to govern themselves. What is it, you would ask, that forms the general and pervading principle of the British constitution, if not the representative one? Every petty corporation, you would observe, elects representatives to act for them in their Common Council—the council elect ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... his generation, attempted a corresponding bow, for which his figure and apoplectic tendency rendered him unfit; and while he was transacting it, the graceful Cibber stepped gravely up, and looked down and up the process with his glass, like a naturalist inspecting some strange capriccio of an orang-outang. The gymnastics ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... barbarous and degraded race which was drifting hopelessly into ruin. They began the solution of this complex problem by arresting the entire race and immuring them within the protecting walls of a system which recognized as its cardinal principle that the natives were unfit to think or act for themselves. For a generation the Fijians have been in a prison wherein they have become the happiest and best behaved captives upon earth. During this time they have become reconciled to a life of peace, and have forgotten the taste of human flesh; and while they ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... his look of suspicion from the five cadets. No cadet may ever lie; not even to a comrade in the corps. Any cadet who utters a lie, and is detected in it, is ostracized as being unfit for the company of gentlemen. So, when Dick's prompt denial came, Anstey believed, as ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock

... epoch when the great boreal ice-sheet covered one-half of the North American continent, reaching as far south as the present cities of Philadelphia and St. Louis, and the glaciated portions were as unfit for human occupation as the snow-cap of Greenland is to-day, aggregations of population clustered around the equatorial zone, because the climatic conditions were congenial. And inasmuch as civilization, the world over, clings to the temperate ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... that the author asserts that the record of the Negro during the last fifty years shows that they are chiefly valuable as laborers in drudgery, or weak in foresight and thrift, and unfit for city life. Yet he believes that there is some hope for the blacks, since they can get work and buy land and thereby become economically independent. He calls attention to such injustices as miscegenation, lynching, unfairness of the courts, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... and even ludicrous provision in one of his laws, which permits an heiress, whose husband proves impotent, to avail herself of the services of the next of kin to obtain an heir to her estate. Some, however, say that this law rightly serves men who know themselves to be unfit for marriage, and who nevertheless marry heiresses for their money, and try to make the laws override nature; for, when they see their wife having intercourse with whom she pleases, they will either break off the marriage, or live in constant shame, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... shell. But there was no choice of such things in King Pluto's palace. This was the first fruit she had seen there, and the last she was ever likely to see; and unless she ate it up immediately, it would grow drier than it already was, and be wholly unfit to eat. ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... preserving its own corporate existence free from injury or pollution, which might arise mainly from two sources. If a member's body was rendered impure either by eating impure food or by contact with a person of impure caste it became an unfit receptacle for the sacred food eaten at the caste feast, which bound its members together in one body. This appears to be the object of the rules about food. And since the blood of the clan and of the caste is communicated by descent through the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a ...
— The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America • Thomas Jefferson

... now in the fulness of his intellectual power. There was nothing sensational, nothing unfit in his speeches. He believed that the conscience of the people was a better guide than individual ambitions, and he inspired them with lofty desires and filled them with sound principles of action. "There are two antagonistic ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... thousand intermediate adventures, has Leviculus spent his time, till he is now grown grey with age, fatigue, and disappointment. He begins at last to find that success is not to be expected, and being unfit for any employment that might improve his fortune, and unfurnished with any arts that might amuse his leisure, is condemned to wear out a tasteless life in narratives which few will hear, and complaints which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... brushed her tears away and returned to her grandmother's side. The gravel was cutting her feet. Her shoes were utterly unfit for running. She would rush back and get a pair of the boys' strong ones. She had worn ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... Manners will improve with the cultivation of the mind, until the pleasure and harmony of social intercourse are no longer marred by the introduction of discordant elements, and they only will be excluded from the best society whose lack of education and whose rude manners will totally unfit them for its enjoyments and appreciation. Good manners are even more essential to harmony in society than a good education, and may be considered as valuable an acquisition as knowledge in ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... the common attraction of an idle gallantry. It was on Greville's high reputation for just and honourable principles, and on his manly and noble nature, that my love was founded, and these will never change;—and if, at times, unpleasant circumstances should arise, into which my sex and age unfit me to inquire to throw a cloud over his features, or a transient peevishness into his humour, it would ill become me—in short," continued she in a trembling voice, and throwing her arms around Lady Percy's neck, to conceal her tears, "in short, dear Madam, you must remember ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... dullard; he had lain prostrate in the wretchedness of his loss. "A girl you could put in your hat—and there you have a strong man prone." He had been a sluggard, weary of himself, unfit to fight, a failure in life and a failure in love. That was ended; he was tired of failing, and it was time to succeed for a while. To accept the worst that Fate can deal, and to wring courage from ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... of the softnesses of life under her hand. As for dining at Framley Court, that was out of the question. Mr. Crawley, she knew, would not hear of it, even if other things were fitting and appliances were at command. Indeed Mrs. Crawley at once said that she felt herself unfit to go through such a ceremony with anything like comfort. The dean, she said, would talk of their going to stay at the deanery; but she thought it quite impossible that either of them should endure even that. But, all the same, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog covered with water. It is unfit either for corn, or pasture, or vineyard, or, indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is very useful to men; and the lands which are fit for those purposes are not fit for rice. Even in the rice ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... writing is seldom complain'd of, as unfit to be allow'd, by any but those who feel themselves hurt by it. For the solemn and grave can bear a solemn and grave Attack: That gives them a sort of Credit in the World, and makes them appear considerable to themselves, ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... colonies, to the southward of Chesapeak bay, or even of New-York, are low and flat, marshy and swampy, and very unhealthful on that account and those on and about the bay of Mexico, and in Florida, are withal excessively hot and intemperate, so that white people are unfit for labour in them; by which all our southern colonies, which alone promise to be of any great advantage to the nation, are so thin of people, that we have but 25,000 white people in all South Carolina. [Footnote: Description of South ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... Uzziah was unfit to reign as king, and Jotham administered the affairs of Judah for twenty-five years before the death of his father. (37) Jotham possessed so much piety that his virtues added to those of two other very pious men suffice to atone for all the sins of the whole of mankind ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... later volumes his must seem to us a godlike voice chanting in the void. For, fit or unfit as we may be to grasp the elusive substance of his strains, all must confess the voice of the singer to be divine. At once in the range and suppleness of his music he is not merely the first of ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Senator is turned wine-bibber!" said Montreal, quaffing a vast goblet full; "that must unfit him for ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... parts is sadly outraged by spindle-wire wheels supporting the massive frame-work and body of an automobile; however strong they may be in reality, architecturally they are quite unfit, and no doubt the wooden wheel will come more ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... to insist on absolute fitness, including honesty, as a prerequisite to every appointment; and to remove only for good cause, and, where there was such cause, to refuse even to discuss with the Senator in interest the unfit servant's retention. Subject to these considerations, I normally accepted each Senator's recommendations for offices of a routine kind, such as most post-offices and the like, but insisted on myself choosing the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... galleries that they might be sent to France. He showed now his audacity and the amazing energy of his plans of conquest. The effect of the horror and disorders of Revolutionary wars had been to deprive him of all scruples. He despised a Republic, and despised the French nation as unfit for Republicanism. "A republic of thirty millions of people!" he exclaimed as he conquered Italy, "with our morals, our vices! How is such a thing possible? The nation wants a chief, a chief covered with glory, not theories ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... burden which were riding at anchor against each other; nor was any means afforded our men of either managing them or of rendering any service. A great many ships having been wrecked, inasmuch as the rest, having lost their cables, anchors, and other tackling, were unfit for sailing, a great confusion, as would necessarily happen, arose throughout the army; for there were no other ships in which they could be conveyed back, and all things which are of service in repairing vessels were wanting, and corn for the winter had not been provided in those places, because ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... not My books: from me hold that which I have not retained My dog unseasonably importunes me to play My fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it My humour is no friend to tumult My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners My innocence is a simple one; little vigour and no art My mind is easily composed at distance My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are My thoughts sleep if ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... the rains that have work to do, ploughing storms that alter the face of things. These come with thunder and the play of live fire along the rocks. They come with great winds that try the pines for their work upon the seas and strike out the unfit. They shake down avalanches of splinters from sky-line pinnacles and raise up sudden floods like battle fronts in the canons against towns, trees, and boulders. They would be kind if they could, but have more important matters. Such storms, called cloud-bursts by the country ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... and they began to regret that for one tyrant put down, there had sprung up a thousand. The arrogance of one party and the anger of the other rose to such a degree, that the heads of the people complained to the bishop of the improper conduct of the nobility, and what unfit associates they had become for the people; and begged he would endeavor to induce them to be content with their share of administration in the other offices, and leave the magistracy of ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... (Caroline Cunningham), a Topeka woman, began newspaper work in 1872. The result of those early years' work was "Spring Showers," a volume of prose. After thirty years of study and experience among the defectives, she wrote "Too Fit For The Unfit," advocating surgery for the feeble-minded. The story of Mrs. Benton, one of the characters, led Mrs. Wood to introduce a law preventing children being sent to the poor house. This was the first law purely in the interest of children ever passed in Kansas. Later, a law ...
— Kansas Women in Literature • Nettie Garmer Barker

... had progressed too far. An appropriate place for their further evolution was prepared on "Mars." Even as far back as the time when the soul was still united with the sun, and was incorporating the sun's air elements within itself, certain souls were proving unfit to participate in the earth's evolution. They were too powerfully affected by the earthly bodily form. Accordingly, even at that time, they had to be withdrawn from the direct influence of the Sun-forces. These had to influence them from without. The planet Saturn became the scene of their ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... business. Making yourself unfit for business, I should say. Call it what you like. I suppose he is your humble servant, and just gives you ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... me, any woman is entirely unfit to educate her daughter who has not so sifted her life experience, so learned the meaning of her creation, so separated the accidents and follies of to-day from the divine purpose, as to read clearly the meaning of life, and to accept for her daughter, as for herself, the great fact ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... world's a sleepy world, And 'tis, I fear, an age too late) Take with you some ambitious Youth! For, restless Wanderer! I, in truth, [15] Am all unfit to ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... Oxford in 1550, and met many times at St. Mary's Church. No documentary evidence of their treatment of libraries remains, but it was certainly most drastic. Any illuminated manuscript, or even a mathematical treatise illustrated with diagrams, was deemed unfit to survive, and was thrown out for sale or destruction. Some of the college libraries did not suffer severely. Most of Grey's books survived in Balliol, although the miniatures were cut out. Queen's, All Souls, and Merton came through the ordeal nearly unscathed. But Lincoln lost the ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... between this sphere of survival and that of the animal world. In it the fittest survive, the others are lost; but in society the unfittest are lost, all the others survive. Social selection weeds out the unfit, the murderer, the most unsocial man, and says to him: "You must die"; natural selection seeks out the most fit and says: "You alone are to live." The difference is important, for it marks a prime series of distinctions, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... as little qualifications as themselves. To invite this imperial race, this, the greatest commercial nation in the world, the nation that has taught the world in the principles of self-government and liberty—to invite this nation itself to sign a decree that declares itself unfit to govern itself without the guardianship of such people, that is an insult which I hope will ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... friendly affection from others, must show it in himself. It will never be proved that any such thing is intended in that place as may warrant this argumentation. There is a particular corruption in one man's heart—for instance, ambition—which makes him unfit to be trusted with government; therefore the same corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or blemish in the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... rather than to any other. If therefore they must have one to rule them, as government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live together; who so likely to be the man as he that was their common father; unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind or body made him unfit for it? But when either the father died, and left his next heir, for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities, less fit for rule; or where several families met, and consented to continue together; there, it is not to be doubted, but they used ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... the conversion of sinners when there are so many carnal empty preachers, both learned and unlearned; I say having had experience of this, and judging this book may be profitable to many others, as well as to myself: I thought it my duty upon this account (though I be very unfit for it) to bear witness with my brother to the plain and simple (and yet glorious) truths of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now reader, the Lord give thee and me a right understanding in these things, that we may live and die not with a traditional notional ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... now, sirrah! Dost thou slander the horse which is a gift from Mother Church to the king's work? Thou art a knave, and no doubt art but unfit for thy task this morn ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... be naughty and sit all the day In night-clothes unfit to be seen? And pray who would lose all their pudding and play, For not being dress'd ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various

... aware that if many of the elect of the land were to weigh themselves against merely the things they are worth, that a great deal of the food subscribed would be unfit to be eaten even by the poor. We should have rats, dogs, snakes, bats, and all other unclean animals; but in levying the parties to weigh themselves at their own valuation, the poor may be certain to "sup in the Apollo." On this principle we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various

... the parable. Talfourd, who heard this lecture, reports that on Hazlitt's allusion to this incident "a titter arose from some who were struck by the picture as ludicrous, and a murmur from others who deemed the allusion unfit for ears polite: he paused for an instant, and then added, in his sturdiest and most impressive manner—'an act which realizes the parable of the Good Samaritan'—at which his moral, and his delicate hearers shrank, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... loss) I have endeavoured to educate in such a manner, that I hope he will be a father to you, if you deserve his love and protection. In short, if you do not keep command enough of yourself to prevent being ruffled by every accident, you will be unfit for all the social offices of life, and be despised by all those whose regard and love are worth your seeking. I treat you, my girl, as capable of considering what is for your own good; for though you are but eleven years of age, yet I hope the pains I have taken ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... Gutierrez; but a cry of agony followed the shout of exultation. The chimney by which the old man supported himself was loose and crumbling, and totally unfit to bear his weight as he hung on by it, and leaned forward to gloat over his vengeance. It tottered for a moment, and then fell with a crash into the street. The height was not great, but the pavement was sharp and uneven; the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... us quite so soon as we saw them, and for a moment one felt a spy; but it was an interesting moment even to a person smarting from a snub. The ruined man looked haggard, ill, unfit to be about, the very embodiment of the newspaper report concerning him. But the spirit beamed through the shrinking flesh, the poor old fellow was alight with pride and love, exultant in spite of himself ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... in consideration of its native place of growth, to treat it here as a greenhouse plant, for which situation it soon becomes unfit from its magnitude; some have ventured to plant it in the open borders in warm sheltered situations, where it has been found to succeed very well, producing its beautiful yellow blossoms in abundance; care must be taken, however, to guard it carefully ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. V - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... replied, "In a former letter I informed you, my dear Humphreys, that if I had talents for it, I have not leisure to turn my thoughts to Commentaries. A consciousness of a defective education, and a certainty of the want of time, unfit me for such an undertaking." On being pressed by a French comrade-in-arms to pay France a visit, he declined, saying, "Remember, my good friend, that I am unacquainted with your language, that I am too ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... prince of the Kuru race, equal unto Indra himself, is now waked from the bare ground towards the small hours of the night by a multitude of birds! How doth Vrikodara, reduced by exposure to wind and sun and filled with wrath, sleep, in the presence of the princess of Panchala, on the bare ground, unfit as he is to suffer such lot! Perhaps also, the intelligent Arjuna, who is incapable of bearing pain, and who, though obedient to the will of Yudhishthira, yet feeleth himself to be pierced over all by the remembrance of his wrongs, sleepeth not in the night! Beholding the twins and Krishna and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... characteristic which may be applied to any impropriety of speech, manner, or conduct. In some of her ladyship's repartees, however, Lord Colambre now acknowledged there was more than unexpectedness; there was real wit; but it was of a sort utterly unfit for a woman, and he was sorry that Lady Isabel should hear it. In short, exceptionable as it was altogether, Lady Dashfort's conversation had become entertaining to him; and though he could never esteem or feel in ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... it be that the years of servitude have extinguished in his heart every human sentiment and there remain only the animal desires to live and reproduce? In that case the type is deformed and will have to be cast over again. Then the hecatomb is preparing: let the unfit perish and only the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew; but this was not enough. In other countries—in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes—I was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it was the same; ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... brine poured out in small quantities on the snow. Wherever the brine dropped the snow melted, and the fire was put out. It was some time, however, before all danger was passed. A large part of the roof was damaged and the house made unfit to ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... cross-bows." Harold himself had his eye struck by an arrow, notwithstanding which he continued to fight at the head of his army. Cross-bows were afterwards prohibited by the second Lateran Council, anno 1139, as hateful to God, and unfit to be used among Christians; in consequence whereof they were laid aside till the reign of Richard the First, who again introduced them, and was himself killed by an arrow or quarrel, discharged from a cross-bow at the siege ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various

... Government, which was to raise timber for the use of the navy, which the private woods of the kingdom could not supply. Much, too, of the soil was said to be unsuited for farming purposes, being so precipitous in some parts, and stony in others, as to be unfit for ploughing. Much of the timber was reported to be of the finest character, and the young trees, for the most part, doing very well. No improvements in the management of the estate were suggested, and at the close of the inquiry the committee reported that ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... bitter wrong Can the earth do us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and aspire To drop some golden orb of perfect song Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away And isolate pure spirits, and permit A place to stand and love in for a day, With darkness ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... Wagner, the greatest of musicians, not being able to take an oath, would have been left an alien. Under this ruling Haeckel, Spencer and Tyndall would be denied citizenship—that is to say, the six greatest men produced by the human race in the nineteenth century, were and are unfit to be citizens of the United States. Those who have placed the human race in debt cannot be citizens of the Republic. On the other hand, the ignorant wife beater, the criminal, the pauper raised in the workhouse, could take the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... three years numbers of young persons have been exposed to almost every influence which could impair health, undermine character and unfit them, both in body and mind, for regular industry ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... being built Washington was advised that Dubois's regiment was unfit to be ordered on duty, there being "not one blanket in the regiment. Very few have either a shoe or a shirt, and most of them have neither stockings, breeches, or overalls. Several companies of inlisted artificers are in the same situation, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... befell me yesterday; though I am sure you will, as usual, turn the opposite side of the spyglass on my poor narrative, and reduce, MORE TUO, to the most petty trivialities, the circumstance to which thou accusest me of giving undue consequence. Hang thee, Alan, thou art as unfit a confidant for a youthful gallant with some spice of imagination, as the old taciturn secretary of Facardin of Trebizond. Nevertheless, we must each perform our separate destinies. I am doomed to see, act, and tell; thou, like a Dutchman enclosed in the same diligence with a Gascon, to ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... temenos and the Arabian haram.[1982] Taboos and privileges attached themselves to such inclosures. Precautions had to be taken on entering them; the shoes, for example, were removed, lest they should absorb the odor of sanctity and thus become unfit for everyday use. The spaces thus set apart were sometimes of considerable extent (as was and is the case at Mecca); within them no war could be waged and no fugitive seized. Sometimes they owed their sacredness to the buildings to which ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... I hoped to spend. Between the lines on my paper I was ever seeing the old baronial hall that was Tom Temple's home, and the people who had been invited to spend the festive season there. Presently I began to chide myself for my foolishness. Why should the thoughts of a Christmas holiday so unfit me, a staid old bachelor of thirty, for my usual work? Nevertheless it did, so I put on my overcoat, and went away in the direction of Hyde Park in order, if possible, to dispel my fancies. I did dispel them, and shortly afterwards returned to my lodgings, and did ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... thick eyebrows, which met in the middle of his forehead; on his mouth played a crafty, mischievous, and sinister smile; his beard was straight and red, and his costume was that of the order of St. Francis in all its repulsiveness, with sandals on his bare feet, that looked altogether unfit ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... The Hindoos have denominated the Supreme Being, the "Internal Check." The illuminated Quakers explained their Light, not as somewhat which leads to any action, but it appears as an obstruction to anything unfit. But the right examples are private experiences, which are absolutely at one on this point. Strictly speaking, Swedenborg's revelation is a confounding of planes,—a capital offence in so learned a categorist. This is to carry the law of surface into the plane ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... solution as the subject of another riddle involving its predecessor in redoubled perplexity. Now, little harm, and little, perhaps, of anything but good, might thereby be done if the lovers of this game were content to play it by themselves, without inviting others to join who are constitutionally unfit for such intellectual wrestling. But mental exercises may to philosophers be health and invigorating sport, and yet be death to the multitude; and Hume, as an Utilitarian, stands self-condemned for making ordinary people uncomfortable by challenging them to disputations ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... I am but a man who, driven to despair, can no longer withhold the cry of a heart wrung by every species of contumely and injustice. Were I tamely to submit to all that you have done to wound me, I were a hound unfit to bear the name of nobleman. By the memory of Cardinal Mazarin, your benefactor, nay, more, the spouse of your mother, I claim the right to remonstrate with your majesty, and to ask ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... the lower animals are large and ponderous volumes, replete with technicalities, and unfit for the general reader; therefore the author of this book has endeavored to present the evidences of mental action, in creatures lower than man, in a clear, simple, and brief form. He has avoided all technicalities, and has used the utmost brevity consistent with clearness and accuracy. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... "Civil Wars" of Daniel. This was the period of the saurians in English poetry, interminable poems, book after book and canto after canto, like far-stretching vertebrae, that at first sight would seem to have rendered earth unfit for the habitation of man. They most of them sleep well now, as once they made their readers sleep, and their huge remains lie embedded in the deep morasses of Chambers and Anderson. We wonder at the length of ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... used to be many old people of this description; their numbers may have diminished, and may decrease still more. Whether the course female education has taken of late days—whether the pursuit of giddy frivolities, and empty nothings, has tended to unfit women for that quiet domestic life, in which they show far more beautifully than in the most crowded assembly, is a question we should feel little gratification ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... my folly now.—I am undone by mine ain policy.—This Sidney is the last man that shou'd have been about my son:—The fellow, indeed, hath given him principles, that might have done vary weel among the ancient Romans,—but are damn'd unfit for the modern Britons.—Weel, guin I had a thousand sons, I never wou'd suffer one of these English, university-bred fellows to be about a son of mine again;—for they have sic an a pride of literature and character, and sic saucy, English notions of liberty continually ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin

... Spaniards looked upon a boundless sea of mountains, "presenting," writes Crespi, "a sad prospect to us poor travelers worn out with the fatigue of the journey." The cold was beginning to be severe, and many of the men were suffering from scurvy and unfit for service, which increased the hardship for all; yet they did not falter but pressed bravely on, and on the 26th emerged from the mountains by the Arroyo Seco, which they named the Canada del Palo Caido[24] ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge

... cried out angrily, "What better could be expected of a man who was reared as a herd-boy? If you want to go back to your business, take the maid with you, who may perhaps understand tending swine, but is quite unfit for a king's consort. Such a peasant girl can only disgrace the throne of a king." These words moved the king to anger, and he answered sternly, "I am king, and can do what I will, but woe to you who have brought ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... colony of Jamestown fell into wild disorder. Every one wanted to go his own way. A new President named Percy had indeed been chosen. But although an honest gentleman he was sickly and weak, and quite unfit to rule these turbulent spirits. So twenty or more would-be presidents soon sprang up, and in the whole colony there was ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... when there will not be food for all and we shall perish in a common destruction. Seen in this light, infant mortality and the cruel wastage of disease were viewed with complacence. It was "Nature's" own process at work. The "unfit," so called, were being winnowed out that only the best might survive. The biological doctrine of evolution was misinterpreted and misapplied ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... mile of the green jungle swept under the flitter, and the flash of the counter's light continued to record a land unfit for mankind. Even with the equipment used on distant worlds to protect what spacemen had come to recognize was a reasonably tough human frame, no ground force could hope to explore that wilderness in person. And flying ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... fair hand to kiss; after which it was braved at. But my lord chamberlain, nobly and gravely, understanding that Rookwood was excommunicated for papistry, called him before him; demanded of him how he durst to attempt her royal presence, he, unfit to accompany any Christian person? Forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the court, and yet to attend her council's pleasure, and at Norwich he was committed. And, to decypher the gentleman to the full; a piece of plate being missed ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... ornament: a plain band—a golden one—or even a coloured one—makes it suitable to the various ranks and occupations of men: while its material, admitting of infinite variety, according to the taste of the wearer, never injures the source of its beauty its form. The cap fails in only one thing; it is unfit for rainy weather; it will only do for dry days. Do not attempt to put a flap behind it, and tie it under your chin—you at once convert it into an ugly nightcap; its curves then imitate those of the head, and the ridiculous takes the place of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... ended and the image began. I have seen a photograph of the Mirror Lake, in California, which, as far as I know, is the only thing that could possibly give one an idea of the marvellous effect of these reflections. Unfit Bay, on Chatham Island, looking towards the mountains near Pill Channel, and Ladder Hill, which looks as if a flight of steps had been cut upon its face, were perhaps two of the most striking points amid all ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... for the settlement of any pressing business, the proper disposition of family affairs, or the procuring of a substitute. It is mild toward the infirm and afflicted, making ample provision for the exemption of those who, from any cause, are unfit for service. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... poverty and high aspirations, combined, and can't be found by search. If these literary chaps are exceptionally fortunate, they are invited to great houses, where they dine with stupid, overfed people who pretend they have read their books, though they haven't, unless they are unfit to read. And so they go on wearily turning that treadmill—and wonder why their work has lost freshness, and convince themselves it has gained style. I am not a literary chap, and I don't wish to be one. I am a poet. Poetry is my profession. And the only way ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens

... commandment I tooke (p. 396) On me (though far unfit to do the same) To translate into English verse this booke, Which Guido wrote in Latin, and doth name 'The Siege of Troy;' and for HIS sake alone, I must confess that I the same begun, When Henry, whom men Fourth by name did call, My Prince's father, lived, and possest The crown. And ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... themselves for others. There was Captain Morton with his one talent, pottering up and down the town talking all kinds of weather, and all kinds of rebuffs that he might keep the girls in school and make them ready to serve society; yet according to Tom's standards of success the Captain was unfit; and there was George Brotherton, ignorant, but loyal, foolishly blind, of a tender heart, yet compared with those who used his ignorance and played upon his blindness (and the Doctor winced at his part in that game) Mr. Brotherton was cast ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... correct description of the color of the light, he was as often incorrect, and it was evidently all guesswork. On my return, I applied to have him removed from the ship, as he was, in my opinion, quite unfit to have charge of the deck at night, and this application was granted. After this occurrence I always, when taking a strange officer to sea, remained on the bridge with him at night until I had tested his ability to distinguish colors. I cannot ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... getting ready. Though we think great injustice has been done by the public to General McClellan's really high merits as an officer, yet it seems to us that those very merits show precisely the character of intellect to unfit him for the task just now demanded of a statesman. His capacity for organization may be conspicuous; but, be it what it may, it is one thing to bring order out of the confusion of mere inexperience, and quite another to retrieve it from a chaos of elements mutually hostile, which is the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... the population of the country in that state where good soldiers are to be obtained. The wealthy, in any state, cannot be numerous; neither are they hardy to bear the fatigue. Their servants, and the idle, the indolent, and unprincipled persons they have about them are totally unfit, and a wretched populace, degraded by want, or inured to ease and plenty ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... at invasion was made by the advance-guard of the commander-in-chief's own army. Dearborn had soon found out that his disorderly masses at Greenbush were quite unfit to take the field. But, four months after the declaration of war, a small detachment, thrown forward from his new headquarters at Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, did manage to reach St Regis, where the frontier first meets the St Lawrence, ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... of Buroulee, in the district of Rodowlee, had been for three years a sipahee in the 48th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, under the name of Mata Deen. Continued sickness rendered him unfit for duty, and he obtained his discharge, and came home to his family. In March 1850, having been long without employment, and reduced, with his family, to great distress, he went to his relation, Ramdhun, of the Intelligence Department, in the service of the King of Oude, and then; on ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... considering that all of the Ingredients, except the Cacao, do rather extenuate, than make fat, because they are hot and dry in the third degree. For we have already said, that the qualities which do predominate in Cacao, are cold, and dry; which are very unfit to adde any substance to the body. Neverthelesse, I say, that the many unctuous parts, which I have proved to be in the Cacao, are those, which pinguifie, and make fat; and the hotter ingredients of this Composition, serve for a guide, ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma

... something left to sell; but because they were required to produce the same crops, and so take the same element from the soil, year after year, they have become so lacking in one of the essential elements that they are unfit for ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... He hath a lion's courage, Fearless in act, but feeble in endurance; Unfit for boisterous times, with gentle heart He worships nature in the hill and valley, Not knowing what he loves, but loves ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... schoolfellows wore, made me unhappy. Your scarlet damask, Miss Betty Ford, cost me a week's pain; and I lay awake, and sighed and wept all night, because I did not dare to spoil it. I had several plots in my head, to have dirtied it, or cut it, so as to have made it unfit to wear; by some accident my plots were prevented; and then I was so uneasy, I could not tell what to do with myself; and so afraid, lest any body should suspect me of such a thing, that I could not sleep in peace, for fear I should dream of it, ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... old William Tell to be broken up. She was barely seaworthy and unfit to continue fishing. An agreement was entered into with Dan Fuller, a Lowestoft boat-builder, for a new lugger to be built, on lines supplied by Posh, at a total cost (including spars) of 360 pounds. FitzGerald had suggested that the boat should be built by a Mr. Hunt, of ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... and strong, and is, besides, a great master of military tactics; but the Panther knows nothing of politics, is ignorant of everything that belongs to civil affairs. A king must be a judge and a minister as well as a warrior. The Panther is good for nothing but fighting; so it, too, is unfit to educate royal children. ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... and only persons of good moral character, are accepted as students. All students are subject to examination and rejection; and they are liable to leave the class if found unfit to remain ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Unfit" :   bandy-legged, unsound, handicapped, kyphotic, afflicted, disqualify, flaccid, subhuman, gammy, unhealthy, crookback, fit, alter, flabby, sick, indispose, apraxic, game, lame, ill, bowlegged, knock-kneed, hunchbacked, bandy, gimpy, humped, halt, change, disabled, humpbacked, swaybacked



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