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Waste   /weɪst/   Listen
Waste

noun
1.
Any materials unused and rejected as worthless or unwanted.  Synonyms: waste material, waste matter, waste product.  "Much of the waste material is carried off in the sewers"
2.
Useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly.  Synonyms: dissipation, wastefulness.  "Mindless dissipation of natural resources"
3.
The trait of wasting resources.  Synonyms: thriftlessness, wastefulness.  "The wastefulness of missed opportunities"
4.
An uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation.  Synonyms: barren, wasteland.  "The trackless wastes of the desert"
5.
(law) reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect.  Synonym: permissive waste.



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"Waste" Quotes from Famous Books



... the baby whimpered. "Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... fire once, and was hit almost immediately. He is much annoyed at this, for he had a good stock of courage, and now he has to waste it within the walls of ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel

... man saw that it was a waste of time to question Mustad. No reliance could be placed on anything ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... can take you along," answered Dick. "But you want to be careful. Old Grinder is as mad as a hornet. He was going to cane me for helping you two. Come, Sam, there is no time to waste. Tubbs, you had better let Fred Garrison know where ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield

... Israel," he said, "why hast Thou forgotten this vine of Thy planting? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Dogs have encompassed Thy beloved; the assembly of the violent have surrounded him. How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... my dear fellow," said he, "and you are liable to spoil everything with your bungling. Here," drawing; a roll of bills from his pocket, "don't let us waste ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... to their need of mineral raw materials and to the recent rapid depletion of these materials, they have been naturally led to inquire how long the reserves may last, and to consider prevention of waste and the more efficient use of materials, with a view to planning more prudently for future national supplies. The first inquiries seemed to reveal such shortage of mineral supplies as to call for immediate ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... hope never to depart from that cause nor side with those that have burnt the causes of God's wrath. They have broken their covenant oftener than once or twice, but I believe the Lord will build Zion, and repair the waste places of Jacob. Oh! to obtain mercy to wrestle with God for their salvation. As for this presbytery, it hath stood in opposition to me these years past. I have my record in heaven I had no particular end in ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... the old hunter think, as he was wandering across the snowy waste, that the hearts of friends were lifted up for him in prayer to that God from whom he had so long obstinately turned away; yet though we must be assured that God overhears the prayers of those who come ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston

... or a determination to get along without tools that your neighbor has purchased. A neglect to secure the best tool needed might be classed as an extravagance, a waste, if the tool in question could have added to the quality and quantity of the output, without the ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun

... persons commonly become more so as they advance in years, owing to a waste of the humours of the eye; and even many people whose sight was very good in their youth, cannot see without spectacles when they grow old. The same waste in the humours of the eye, is the reason why shortsighted persons commonly become less so as they advance in years; so that many who were shortsighted ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... concentration, which govern the short-story, are common also to the drama; by reason of their brevity both demand a directness of approach which leads up, without break of sequence or any waste of words, through a dependent series of actions to a climax which is final. It will usually be found in studying the borrowings which the masters have made from such sources as the Gesta Romanorum that the portions which they ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... excellency deny that the delay, the neglect, and the conduct generally of the prize judges, have been the cause of an immense diminution in the value of the captures? Have not the consequences been a wanton and shameful waste of property by decay and plunder? Can your excellency really believe in the existence of a good and sufficient motive for consigning such property to destruction, rather than at once awarding it to the captors in recompense for their services to the empire? Is it not true ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... men—mere boys—and the women who have assembled here to fight for him. They are nothing but drivellers and triflers. If the master is like his men it serves him right if he is overthrown; to weep for him would be waste ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... writing that appealed strongly enough to my fancy—travel, popular science, humor, light verse, editorials, essays, interviews, personality sketches and captions for photographs. Genius takes a short cut to the highroad. But waste not your sympathy on the rest of us, for the ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... said; "nature exhausted by suffrance, and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... time you were ready for breakfast, Pliny. I am waiting, and have been for two hours, and I really haven't time to waste, while you lie there and talk nonsense. Whatever else you do, don't be foolish enough to cast all the blame of ...
— Three People • Pansy

... they saw Jerusalem's empty streets; her shrine Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law With idol and with pagan sign. Mourners in tattered black were there With ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... of asceticism, art certainly able to bring hither within a moment, by ascetic power, everything that exists in the world of men." Agastya said, "It is even so as thou hast said. That, however, would waste my ascetic merit. O bid me do that which may not loosen my ascetic merit." Lopamudra then said, "O thou endued with wealth of asceticism, my season will not last long, I do not desire, however, to approach thee otherwise. Nor do I desire to diminish thy (ascetic) merit in any way. It behoveth thee, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... plain is the wide country of Thebet, or Thibet, which the great khan vanquished and laid waste; and in it there are many ruined cities and castles, for the space of twenty days journey, which has become an uninhabited wilderness, full of lions and other wild beasts. Those who have to travel through this country ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... influence upon the language he has ransacked? A temporary laying-waste, undoubtedly. That is, the contemporary use of his vocabulary is spoilt, his beautiful words are wasted, spent, squandered, gaspilles. The contemporary use—I will not say the future use, for no critic should prophesy. But the past he has not been ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... of the organic system depend upon a continued state of change. The waste of the body produced in muscular action, perspiration, and various secretions, is made up for by the constant supply of nutritive matter to the blood by the absorbents, and by the action of the heart the blood is preserved in perpetual motion through ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... regard to this new society was its relation to land. Professor Boutmy has said of the United States, "Their one primary and predominant object is to cultivate and settle these prairies, forests, and vast waste lands. The striking and peculiar characteristic of American society is that it is not so much a democracy as a huge commercial company for the discovery, cultivation, and capitalization of its enormous territory. The United States are primarily a commercial society, and only secondarily a nation." ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone: They waste, they wither worse; they as they run Or bring more or more blazon man's distress. And I not help. Nor word now of success: All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one— Work which to see scarce so much as begun Makes welcome death, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... work by six o'clock in the summer, and, probably, half-past six or seven in the winter months, having spent a reasonable time in her own chamber in dressing. Earlier than this would, probably, be an unnecessary waste of coals ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... at diplomatic intervention. During his stay in England, Nicholas I. was approached on behalf of the Jews by personages of high rank. Yet the Government would scarcely have yielded to public protests, had it not become patent that it was impossible to carry out the decree without laying waste entire cities and thereby affecting injuriously the interests of the exchequer. The fatal ukase was not officially repealed, but the Government did not ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... that comes of playing in the water. I think you had better keep out of it in the future: but run up and get dressed, and don't cry any more; it is not worth while to waste tears over them." ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... waste my time on such a lazy person, Betty," said Mollie, who was walking briskly ahead with Amy. "I suppose we might have brought the car," she added, after a minute, "only it seems foolish when you have to stop at every ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope

... world's history, carried his little son on his shoulders one night when the winds were not so boisterous, though we were deeper in Winter, along the identical road we traversed, between the gorsemounds, across the heaths, with yonder remembered fir-tree clump in sight and the waste-water visible to footfarers rounding under the firs. At night-time he vowed, that as far as nature permitted it, he had satisfied the squire—'completely satisfied him, I mean,' he said, to give me sound sleep. 'No doubt of it; no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... varying waste of elements There passed a sail, which caught the opposing wind, Triumphant, as an ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... pilgrim spake, With eyes that glisten'd wild; For privilege to die with you, We give you all our gold; For bitterer want, than want of wealth, For want of love my child, My child, must, like his mother, waste, And both will ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley

... him, entered the low door with bent head, and closed it behind them. The dog lay down weary, but Steenie set about lighting the peats ready piled between the great stones of the hearth. The wind howled over the waste hill in multitudinous whirls, and swept like a level cataract over the ghastly bog at its foot, but scarce a puff blew against ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... to omit that disagreeable word. When my mind is once made up, I permit of no ifs nor buts. And as we do not require a great amount of money to defray our little domestic expenses, I think it would be wrong for us to waste the best part of our lives in useless delay. After one year has elapsed, the parson shall unite us as man and wife, and I shall take you from this valley, and we will look forward to all the joys and sorrows, which our Heavenly Father ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... out what had changed her plans, and to persuade her to be married at once and return with him to Chicago. The epistle ended with a love rhapsody that deserved a better fate than to be torn into shreds and consigned to the waste-basket. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... on; two or three, sometimes more, going on a car to the grave for want of bearers to carry them, and many buried only in the fields and ditches where they perished. This universal scarcity was ensued by fluxes and malignant fevers, which swept off multitudes of all sorts: whole villages were left waste by want, and sickness, and death in various shapes; and scarcely a house in the whole island escaped from tears and mourning. The loss must be upwards of 400,000, but supposing it 200,000, (it was certainly ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... and ballasting process; and when the sun sank beneath the sands of the western horizon, and the engine pushed the empty trucks and the weary men home to the Railhead camp, it came back over a finished and permanent line. There was a brief interval while the camp-fires twinkled in the waste, like the lights of a liner in mid-ocean, while the officers and men chatted over their evening meal, and then the darkness and silence of the desert was unbroken till morning brought the glare and toil of ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... jaguar, the peccary, the agouti, and the timid deer. Here, when the summer sun sends down its burning rays day after day from a cloudless sky, the grass withered and shrivelled by its heat, the plain presents the appearance of a desert waste. No cooling breeze passes across it, no shelter is found from the scorching heat. The pools are dried-up, the surface of the swamps becomes cracked and dry—the brown stalks of the tall reeds alone marking the nature ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... was a person not likely to waste much time on the sentimentalities of such a meeting; she soon dashed into the common-sense question of what were their plans in London? and when they would come and dine with herself and "James" "Quite friendly. We will ask no one, except of course ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... must do, increase production. We must cut down on waste. And we must use more of those fuels which are plentiful and more permanent. We must be fair to people, and we must not disrupt our ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter

... accomplished amid curt phrases. "It doesn't matter, that will do.... I can't afford to waste time.... Come, Merat, try to get on ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... the good Deacon changed gradually as he realized that his hearers were not in sympathy with him, and his speech became almost solemn in its impressiveness as he continued. "See here! This ain't a thing to waste. Ten thousand dollars a year to start with, an' the best church in Chicago, you can't expect to do better than that. Though you're young still, when the chance comes, it ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... best a wearisome business, a criminal waste of time, useless for practical purposes. It was well enough when Parliament was not overburdened with work, and when the members balloting for places rarely exceeded a score. But when, as happened on the opening day of the Session, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... house was set on fire, and numbers of domestic animals of all sorts were killed. French and Indians vied with each other in pillage, and I made them enter the [valleys of all the] little streams that flow into the Kaskekouke and lay waste everything there.... Wherever we went we made the same havoc, laid waste both sides of the river, through twelve leagues of fertile country, burned houses, barns, stables, and even a meeting-house,—in all, above two hundred ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... to another man at his own expense. In short, the question is always who HE is, and who THE OTHER is. For instance, in a person created and destined for command, self-denial and modest retirement, instead of being virtues, would be the waste of virtues: so it seems to me. Every system of unegoistic morality which takes itself unconditionally and appeals to every one, not only sins against good taste, but is also an incentive to sins of omission, an ADDITIONAL seduction under the mask of philanthropy—and precisely ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... for his frank affection. With some business talents and practical shrewdness, he was quite incapable of wisely conducting his affairs, by reason of a mania for speculation and originality. There was considerable waste of good ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... will not have died for naught; the "red wine of youth," the wanton waste of life, has shown us the price of life, and we will have to keep our oath to make the future worthy ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... Otranto bears, Pull with a will! and, please the Lord, Let them who bragged, with fire and sword, To waste our ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... the three-inch ash rail that had been peeled and polished like glass by the rubbings of all the small-clothes in the parish, he forgot the time, the place, forgot that it was August—in short, everything of the present altogether. His mind flew back to his past life, and deplored the waste of time that had resulted from his not having been able to make up his mind which of the many fashions of art that were coming and going in kaleidoscopic change was the true point of departure from himself. He had suffered from the modern malady ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... rejoice at; but the day in its cells, and the sky for the roof of its chambers of cruelty—that was its desolation and defeat! If I had seen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have felt that not that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns, could waste it, like the sunbeams in its secret ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... generally run on solid matters, and not on trifles, such as dress, adjustments, ornaments, and the like fooleries, which would disgust any man of sense? In a word, that she would not be haughty, proud, arrogant, impertinent, scornful, and waste a man's estate in frivolous expences, such as gaudy clothes, unnecessary jewels, toys, and the like long train ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... himself with stationery, and selected a new point for a pen. Half a dozen times he made a start and as often threw a crumpled sheet into the waste-paper basket. It took him nearly an hour to compose an epistle that suited him. What he had finally to content himself with was ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... love and hope and trust, thrilled her breast faintly, as the young bird stirs in its nest under the loving mother's wing, but he had clasped his arms around her, and that was enough. But one day the Tempter whispered, "Why waste such talent; bring that beauty of voice before the world and see men bow in homage, and women envy and praise. Come ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... waste any more time talkin' about it, Benjamin; you can jest take that puppy-dog and carry him off. I don't care what you do with him; you can carry him back where you got him, or give him away, or swap him off; but jest as sure as you leave him here half an hour longer, I'll call Jimmy up from the ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... gentlemen are turned loose. They either "pay their shot," as Punch has it, in the shape of rent, or are the guests of the noble proprietors. Their devices for circumventing the antlered monarch of the waste are amply detailed by Scrope, Hawker, Herbert and also by the late Edwin Landseer doing the pictorial department with a success attributable chiefly to his management of landscape effect, for his dogs, deer and other animals ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... one of the great crises in creation. As nutrition at first established itself in the face of waste, and reproduction in the face of death, so representation was able, by help of vocal symbols, to confront that dispersion inherent in experience, which is something in itself ephemeral. Merely to associate ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... the nurse when she comes." A heavy man of middle age, with curious dark impassive eyes that at times showed an ironic light, Lake was a despot in a world of mothers to whom his word was law. He was busy to-night, with no time to waste, and his low harsh voice now rattled out orders which Edith wrote down in feverish haste—an hourly schedule, night and day. He named a long list of things needed at once. "Night nurse will be here in an hour," he ended. "Day nurse, to-morrow, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... considered yet, and it's rather important," said Demosthenes, taking a fresh pebble out of his bonbonniere. "That's in the matter of stationery. This club, like all other well-regulated clubs, provides its members with a suitable supply of writing materials. Charon informs me that the waste-baskets last week turned out forty-two reams of our best correspondence paper on which these poets had scribbled the first draft of their verses. Now I don't think the club should furnish the poets with the raw material for their poems any ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... taste, may it not be found to be nothing else than the secret of the art of life itself—I mean the capacity for discovering the real fatality, the real predestined direction of one's intrinsic nature and the refusal, when this is found, to waste one's energies in alien paths ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... amounts to saying that the time to cultivate its waste lands has not arrived for France, just as the time for railroads has not arrived for the Kaffres and the Hottentots. For, as has been said in the second chapter, society begins by working those sources which yield most easily and surely the most necessary ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... remains to Lalla if not to Feramorz. The prose interludes have lost none of their airy grace. Even Mr. Burnand has not been able to make Mokanna ridiculous, nor have the recent accounts of the actual waste of desert and felt huts banished at least the poetical beauty of "Merou's bright palaces and groves." There are those who laugh at the bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream: I do not. "Paradise and the Peri" is perhaps the prettiest purely sentimental poem that ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... system; and muscle cells, united into muscle fibres, as the consumption furnaces, where fuel is burned and energy transformed and rendered available for the purposes of the organism, supplemented by a set of excretory organs, through which the waste products—the ashes—are eliminated from ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... my astonishment when he informed me that the 'shiftless individual' whose foolish waste of time so much excited his commiseration, was none other than the President of the National Academy of Design—the most exalted position, in my youthful artistic fancy, it was possible for mortal to attain—S.F.B. Morse, since better known as ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... sign that she wished our visit to terminate, without further waste of words we returned by the way we had come, the doors opening as before, without our touching the latch, while the last one shut with a loud slam behind us, and we heard bars and bolts immediately drawn across it, showing us that some person had been concealed ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... watching in awe, For the Eye of the Night is the Law! Bliss-dower'd: O daughter of the skies, Hail, holy ORDER, whose employ Blends like to like in light and joy— Builder of Cities, who of old Call'd the wild man from waste and wold. And in his hut thy presence stealing, Roused each familiar household feeling; And, best of all the happy ties, The centre of the social band,— The Instinct of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... the women drew the nails out of the wounds, wrapped the corpse in a sheet, and dragged it through the rooms towards a small rampart, intending to throw it down into a garden which had been allowed to run to waste. They hoped that the old man's death would be attributed to his having accidentally fallen off the terrace on his way in the dark to a closet at the end of the gallery. But their strength failed them when they reached the door of the last room, ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... naturally draw your attention it ought not to be forgotten that the militia laws have exhibited such striking defects as could not have been supplied by the zeal of our citizens. Besides the extraordinary expense and waste, which are not the least of the defects, every appeal to those laws is attended with a doubt ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington

... I heard him say, "I deserve it all—everything! You are too good to waste any pity on me! But I love you for it. I have loved you since the moment I saw you staring at me as if I were the devil. I loved you when you came to the prison and pointed me out for what I was, the man with the pistol. I ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain

... Andrew, don't waste your money in making the attempt till you have surer grounds to go on than you now have," was the answer. "Possession is nine parts of the law. I have no more doubt than you have as to the claims of this boy; but can you prove them without ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... of how young ladies feel," Minola said quietly, "but I know how I feel, Mr. Sheppard, and you know it too. Take my last word. I'll never marry you. You only waste your time, and perhaps the time of somebody else as well—some good girl, Mr. Sheppard, who would be glad to marry you and whom you will be quite ready to make love to ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... house for many years. And as you are a mother, and seem anxious to learn a mother's duty and privilege, I will frankly give you my experience. I did not play much with, our children, nor caress them much. I hadn't time, and I didn't wish them to be babies too long nor waste much of their precious morning of life in play. I did not flatter nor praise them very much. I was afraid of fostering pride. But I have instructed them in our glorious doctrines with diligence and all the skill ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er

... others while you stood there, and did your best to disaffect men who hadn't the least desire to join in your trouble-making.... Now I'm very busy, young man, and I think this is all the time I shall waste on you. I shall expect to ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... self-protection, I foreclosed. Of course, under the law, Don Miguel had a year's grace in which to redeem the property, and during that year I couldn't take possession without first proving that he was committing waste upon it. However, the old man died of a broken heart a few months after receiving news of his son's death, and, in the protection of my interest, I was forced to petition the court to grant me permission to enter into possession. It was my duty to protect the equity ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... God's hand lies heavy on him Who has been created a man: Full many a trial he must patiently bear, And scorn and contumely of every kind. His life is like a field laid waste— Fortunate he is if it lasts not too long! Were I, for instance, a woman, How smooth and pleasant were my course. A circle of intimate friends Would call me gentle, graceful, modest. Comfortably I'd ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... attempts of such men will often miscarry, we may reasonably expect; yet from such men, and such only, are we to hope for the cultivation of those parts of nature which lie yet waste, and the invention of those arts which are yet wanting to the felicity of life. If they are, therefore, universally discouraged, art and discovery can make no advances. Whatever is attempted without previous certainty of success, may be considered as a project, and amongst narrow minds may, therefore, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... to put out his hand—that was plain enough. And why not? Was any humbler draught to be for ever put aside, because the best wine had been poured to waste? ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Dioxide. When carbon dioxide occurs in large quantities, it is dangerous to health, because it interferes with normal breathing, lessening the escape of waste matter through the breath and preventing the access to the lungs of the oxygen necessary for life. Carbon dioxide is not poisonous, but it cuts off the supply of oxygen, just as water cuts it off from a ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... notwithstanding her present happiness and her long days of health and vigor and glee, that she was disobeying the sea, for she was not washing therein, nor getting herself clean in all that waste of water. The old cry awoke again in her heart with an almost ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... as old people have told me, there lived a terrible monster, who came out of the North, and laid waste whole tracts of country, devouring both men and beasts; and this monster was so destructive that it was feared that unless help came no living creature would be left on the face of the earth. It had a body like an ox, and legs like a frog, ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... of the Simultaneous Richness are here also always necessary; nor can these things ever really progress except through a deep religious sense—all mere scepticism and all levelling down are simply so much waste. Still, we can speak of progress in the Science of Religion more appropriately than we can of progress in the ...
— Progress and History • Various

... The sentiment of this convention, and I believe of the people whom we represent, is so nearly unanimous that extended discussion, it seems to me, would be a waste of time.... If it were proposed to submit to a vote of the people whether the property of the gentleman from Laramie should be taken from him, or my property should be taken from me and given to somebody else, there would be no difference of opinion upon it. In Wyoming this right of our women ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... intoned, chanted abstractions in behalf of being concrete—came to me in my speechless, happy gratitude as a kind of first sign in the heavens, as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, up over the place in the waste of water where land, Land! At last! Land ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... machine with w'eels and horse-shoe magnets, didn't he? He hasn't been in here for some time, so I know he's at work on some tomfoolery or other. Amazing, isn't it, that a man of his blood, with a cellar of the best Madeiwa in the State, should waste his time on such things. Egad! I cawn't understand it." Some of Billy's expressions, as well as his accent, came in with his clothes. "Now, if I had that Madeiwa, do you know what I'd ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... deliver a lecture at Galesburg is received. I regret to say I cannot do so now; I must stick to the courts awhile. I read a sort of lecture to three different audiences during the last month and this; but I did so under circumstances which made it a waste of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... afternoon the fire of the guerillas slackened a good deal, and it was evident that their leaders were enjoining them not to waste their ammunition. As it became dark, the officers gathered again in the body of the church. The total loss had risen to thirty-two killed and fifty wounded, the English casualties being about ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... fire mysteriously, signaling their movement and direction, and answered from afar by other conflagrations; bridges that had been sound enough before blew up at the last moment. What the Belgians were charged with, and their country laid waste for, all East Prussia is organized to do daily as an established and carefully schooled ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... of some public building; or he has to buy, or build, or alter his own house. It signifies less whether the knowledge of other arts be general or not; men may live without buying pictures or statues: but, in architecture, all must in some way commit themselves; they must do mischief, and waste their money, if they do not know how to turn it to account. Churches, and shops, and warehouses, and cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built, and lived in, however joyless or inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all of us ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... girl just out of college—a mere child compared with the score of swarthy, stalwart men as old as herself who sit before her. Her mobile features seem to mirror a hundred thoughts while their impassive faces are moved by only one. Her quick speech almost trips in its eagerness not to waste the short, precious hour. Only a strong effort holds her back while she waits for the slow answers of the young men whom she drills over and over again in simple problems of arithmetic. The class and the teacher are an epitome of American history. ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington

... son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four, and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn't he a hostage? Are we a-going to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be our last chance, and I shouldn't wonder. Kill that boy? Not me, mates! And number three? Ah, well, there's a deal to say to number three. Maybe you don't count it nothing to ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "the most wretched and effeminate of the nation," who has only two hands, two eyes, and who will fall if unsupported. And yet, he goes on rhetorically, "you sow the fruits of the earth that he may waste them; you furnish your houses for him to pillage them; you rear your daughters to glut his lust and your sons to perish in his wars; . . . you exhaust your bodies in labor that he ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... contemplating what the world loses in the deaths of brilliant young citizen soldiers that we appreciate most fully the waste of war and the priceless value of the cause for which such lives were sacrificed. When a man like Henri Regnault—the most substantial hope and promise of art in our century—is seen at the siege of Paris lingering behind his retreating comrades, "le ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... them by their book names easily enough, but I often wondered whether they could put them into English. Some of them I coveted for the mountains. Men with clear heads and big hearts, and built after Sandy M'Naughton's model. It does seem a sinful waste of God's good human stuff to see these fellows potter away their lives among theories living and dead, and end up by producing a book! They are all either making or going to make a book. A good thing we haven't to read them. ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor

... were delusive. Scarcely had night set in, when the tumult broke forth anew. The thunder here is not like the tame thunder of the Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash directly above our heads, it roared over the boundless waste of prairie, seeming to roll around the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful reverberation. The lightning flashed all night, playing with its livid glare upon the neighboring trees, revealing the vast expanse of the plain, and then leaving us shut ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... not very good at fences, as a rule, but I leaped that one like a cat, and came down in a barrel of waste-paper on the other side. Getting me out was a breathless matter, finally accomplished by turning the barrel over so that I could crawl out. We could hear the excited voices of the two men beyond the fence, and we ran. I was better than Sperry at that. I ran like a rabbit. I never even felt ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... school children should, of course, score a pretty high percentage of success in giving a passing mark to sophomores, juniors, and seniors in American colleges. But is this really a success, or is it rather not evidence of a failure in the whole school curriculum, and of woful waste in our system of so-called "higher" education? Are colleges for the training ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... was now empty, she hunted in the others and discovered two more Maconochie tins that Bompard had overlooked, some cotton waste, a roll of thick copper wire ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... day's rations with us, to use in case we did not get back that night, and started with a head wind and storm that confined our view to the immediate vicinity of the sledge. Our guide, however, took us through this trackless waste of smooth ice, a distance of over twenty-five miles, without deviation from the direct line, with no landmarks or sun to steer by; but on he went with the unerring instinct of a dog, until we struck the land at the western banks of Pfeffer River. ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... waste Of leafless trees and drifting snows, And still with most malicious haste They dealt around ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... warmed her a little, and she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked up. The sun had just come up over the hill. It gave her courage. She turned and looked the other way from which she had come—nothing but a waste of water and woods. Suddenly, from a point up over the nearer woods a little sparkle caught her eye; there must be a house there, she thought; they might have matches, and she would go back and get some. But there it was again—it moved. There was another—another—and ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... General turned; and the small and melancholy band of Spaniards pushed on to Tlacuba, Cortes protecting the rear. It is said that he sat down on a stone in the village called Popotla near Tlacuba, and wept; a rare occurrence, for he was not a man to waste any energy in weeping while aught remained to be done. The country was aroused against them, and they did not rest for the night till they had fortified themselves in a temple on a hill near Tlacuba, where afterward was ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... of the waves by Miwo, Swift with ships, loud over steersmen's voices. Hakuryo, taker of fish, head of his house, Dwells upon the barren pine-waste ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound

... commanding position, Dick surveyed the scene, and thought it a fitting occasion to raise his voice. He stretched himself to the full height of his few inches, flapped his wings, and crowed—not once or twice, but continually. Over the waste of waters came his shrill 'Cock-a-doodle-doo!' All the cocks along the shore answered his call; all the turkeys gobbled, and the geese cackled. His vessel struck the heavy timber of a broken bridge, and lurched and dipped, ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... connection with the revolutionary party in China? And how would you set about convincing a stolid British jury that you were acting in the interests of law and order in concealing your visit to No. 17 on the night of the murder? These fine-drawn speculations, however, are a sheer waste of breath. Suppose we concoct an advertisement ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... strong upon me now a vision of what I once saw in "The Willows." The Willows was a clump of trees in a waste piece of land near the railway depot and not more than five minutes walk from the heart of Sacramento. It is night-time and the scene is illumined by the thin light of stars. I see a husky laborer in the midst of a pack of road-kids. He is infuriated and cursing them, not a bit afraid, ...
— The Road • Jack London

... Lady, give me leave, with the sportive sea-porpoises, preludiately a little to play before the storm of my tears, to make my prayer before I proceed to my sacrifice. Lo, for an oblation to the rich burnished shrine of your virtue, a handful of Jerusalem's mummianized earth, in a few sheets of waste paper enwrapped, I here, humiliate, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... works by a definite method. Might we not as well say that Nature ploughs and plants and trims and harvests? We pick out our favorites among plants and animals, those that best suit our purpose. We go straight to our object, with as little delay and waste as possible. Not so Nature. Her course is always a round-about one. Our petty economies are no concern of hers. Our choice selection of rich milkers, prolific poultry, or heavy-fleeced sheep is with her quickly sacrificed ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... existed in regard to this subject has taken two different forms: First, there has been the broad assumption upon which Franke wrote to Ziegenbalg, that all knowledge of heathenism is worse than useless. Good men are asking, "Is not such a study a waste of energy, when we are charged with proclaiming the only saving truth? Is not downright earnestness better than any possible knowledge of philosophies and superstitions?" And we answer, "Yes: by all ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... she replied, "throwing away the outside of the cake eatest the middle only. Vikram also in his ambition, without subduing the frontiers before attacking the towns, invades the heart of the country and lays it waste. On that account, both the townspeople and others rising, close upon him from the frontiers to the centre, and destroy his army. That is ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... sure that the fellow got the money. The bank note I found may have never been in the possession of Mr. Carson. And even if it was, it may be the only one to be blown out of its hiding place by the explosion. It strikes me that we'd better give the place a thorough search before we waste much time looking for Ventner. If, as Tommy says, he never left the mine by way of the shaft, we've got him blocked in, ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... her aesthetic taste had been absorbed by music, and that pictures meant nothing to her, but they meant a great deal to him, and, unable to resist the temptation, he said—"Let us go in for a little while, though it does seem a pity to waste this ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... journey you can't afford to waste your breath. Move a little, Monsieur—let me open the other door of the cupboard—there are some chocolates worth eating on that back shelf. Do you admire my armoire? It is old Breton—it belonged to my grandmother, who was from Morbihan. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... part, and supply the deficiencies of perception by the imagination. In the acquisition of knowledge of the highest interest and importance this same hindrance is one of the most frequent obstacles. The careless eye and the heedless ear waste for many minds a large portion of the time ostensibly given to serious pursuits, and render their growth pitifully slow and scanty as compared with their means of culture. The senses may, especially in early life, be trained to ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... daybreak. Hunger and anxiety drove them out of their tent. Not a morsel of anything for breakfast! They looked abroad over the country, in order, if possible, to descry some living creature. None could be seen—nothing but the wilderness waste of snow, with here and there the side of a steep hill, or a rock showing cold and bleak. Even the wolves that had robbed them were no longer to be seen, as if these creatures knew that they had got all that was worth ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid



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