"Utilitarian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the utilitarian aspect of overalls. He had been afraid that I had come from the family of a minister or professor or writer, a lot of high thinking and no common sense. Cyrus ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Roman ritual is exaggerated by recent writers. But it has also long been the practice to describe that ritual as a system of bargaining with the gods: as partaking of the nature of a legal contract. "The old Roman worship was businesslike and utilitarian. The gods were partners in a contract with their worshippers, and the ritual was characterised by the hard formalism of the legal system of Rome. The worshipper performed his part to the letter with the scrupulous exactness required in pleadings before the praetor."[406] This is an excellent ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... same rhythmic patterns. It is the distinction of verse to follow a chosen pattern, with due regard to the artistic principles of variety and uniformity; it is the distinction of prose to accomplish its object, whether artistic or utilitarian, without encroaching on the boundaries of its neighbor. Prose may be as 'poetic,' as charged with powerful emotion, as possible, but it remains true prose only when it refuses to borrow aids from the characteristic ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... modern education, and by what may be called the modern spirit, the same influences are telling both in Europe and in India; they have come from Europe to India. There is the same unwillingness to believe in the supernatural, and the same demand that religion shall satisfy ethical and utilitarian tests. One difference, however, we may note. The educated men of India may not be living so entirely in the modern atmosphere as the men of Europe and America; but in India the modern spirit finds usages and systems of thought more inconsistent ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... the better the morale, the more profound its mystery from the utilitarian angle of judgment. There is something miraculous in the power of a bald and unhesitating announcement of reverse to steel the temper of men attuned to making sacrifices and to meeting emergencies. No one can touch the deepest moral resources of an army or nation who does not know ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of primal man, Grim utilitarian, Loving woods for hunt and prowl, Lake and hill for fish and fowl, As the brown bear blind and dull To the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... this is urged on the score of aesthetics, the ready reply will be,—"Oh, we can't give time here in America to go into niceties and French whim-whams!" But the French mode of doing almost all practical things is based on that true philosophy and utilitarian good sense which characterize that seemingly thoughtless people. Nowhere is economy a more careful study, and their market is artistically arranged to this end. The rule is so to cut their meats that no portion designed to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... might contribute to the success of his work, and applied himself to its principles with the same thoroughness which distinguished his handling of the Utilitarian Standard. One of his sons had emigrated to the United States and become, in course of time, the manager of a large boot factory in Brockton, Mass. From him Hankin received patterns and lasts and occasional consignments of American leather. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... plural forms. Place-names—such as Bejar (p. 58) and Cordoba (p. 184)—are accentuated; so are trisyllables and polysyllables such as Gongora (p. 209) and Zuniga (p. 57 and elsewhere). It will be seen that, in this matter, I have been guided by strictly utilitarian principles. Inconsistencies are perhaps unavoidable under any system. The plan followed here, while it tends to diminish the total number of accents, probably involves no more inconsistencies than any other. ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... some violent interest. Well, the war is over; I believe too much in the responsibilities of authorship to write just now; and business, well, business speaks for itself. It has no connection with anything in the world that I've ever been interested in, except a slim, utilitarian connection with economics. What I'd see of it, lost in a clerkship, for the next and best ten years of my life would have the intellectual content of an ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... penetrating peace. The white birches now almost shut the house from view; the barn had wholly disappeared. From the finely proportioned old doorway of the house protruded a long, grayed, weather-beaten tuft of hay. The last utilitarian dishonor had befallen it. It had not even its old dignity of vacant desolation. She went closer and peered inside. Yes, hay, the scant cutting from the adjacent old meadows, had been piled high in the room which had been the gathering-place of the forgotten ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... character, and he illustrates the development of the New England Englishman into the modern Yankee. Clear rather than subtle, without ideality or romance or fineness of emotion or poetic lift, intensely practical and utilitarian, broad-minded, inventive, shrewd, versatile, Franklin's sturdy figure became typical of his time and his people. He was the first and the only man of letters in colonial America who acquired a cosmopolitan fame and impressed his characteristic Americanism upon the mind of Europe. He was the embodiment ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... and Kansas prairies of a thousand miles—smooth and easy areas of the corn and wheat of ten million democratic farms in the future——here start up in every conceivable presentation of shape, these non-utilitarian piles, coping the skies, emanating a beauty, terror, power, more than Dante or Angelo ever knew. Yes, I think the chyle of not only poetry and painting, but oratory, and even the metaphysics and music fit for the New World, before being finally ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... talented man, excelling in swimming and horsemanship," it is more likely that he will be a cultured, indolent individual, with an intense appreciation of the arts and sciences, and a dislike to hard work and utilitarian principles. Climatic influence should be taken into account with regard to the future Australian, and our posterity will no more resemble us than the luxurious Venetians resembled their hardy forefathers, who first started to build on those lonely ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... head of all the literature of imagination. Some people of highly utilitarian views decry poetry, and desire to feed all readers upon facts. But that this is a great mistake will be apparent when we consider that the highest expressions of moral and intellectual truth and the most finely wrought examples of literature in every ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... frame the bill they found themselves in an atmosphere tending to chill their enthusiasm. Lord Palmerston had died the year before, and with him had disappeared an adventurous foreign policy and the militant view of empire. The strictly utilitarian school of thought was dominant. Canada was unpleasantly associated in the minds of British statesmen with the hostile attitude of the United States which seemed to threaten a most unwelcome war. John Bright approved of ceding Canada to the Republic as the price of peace. Gladstone also ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... doubt have been evident that the spirit which animates these pages is not utilitarian. It would be an error to suppose that the simplicity we seek has anything in common with that which misers impose upon themselves through cupidity, or narrow-minded people through false austerity. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... earth; to think, thou shalt lift thyself to Me.' We have as much need of the life of the soul as of the life of the body,—hence, there are two utilities. It is true we cannot be shod by books or clothed by poems. An epic song is not, if you take the utilitarian view, as useful as the broth of a charity kitchen. The noblest ideas will not sail a vessel in place of canvas. It is quite true that the cotton-gin gives us calicoes for thirty sous a yard less than we ever paid before; but that ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... reproach is just. In our hurry of utilitarian progress, we have either forgotten the Indian altogether, or looked upon him only in a business point of view, as we do almost everything else; as a thriftless, treacherous, drunken fellow, who knows just enough to be troublesome, and who must be cajoled or forced ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... quite lost himself in the puzzling calculation he attempted. As for Pierre, it was in silence that he gazed upon this mass of wax, destined to be burnt in open daylight to the glory of God; and although he was by no means a rigid utilitarian, and could well understand that some apparent acts of extravagance yield an illusive enjoyment and satisfaction which provide humanity with as much sustenance as bread, he could not, on the other hand, refrain from reflecting on ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... cleared, leaving here and there vast stretches of walnut groves, and long lines of majestic elms, groups of sturdy oaks, and occasionally a single regal pine tree. Many a time in later years his utilitarian friends would say, "Chief, these trees you are preserving so jealously are eating up a great deal of your land. Why not cut away and grow wheat?" But he would always resent the suggestion, saying that his wheat lands lay back from the river. They were ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... that you are a thorough utilitarian," she replied; "and since these people will continue to commit murder on the high road, I suppose you would have them do it at regular intervals, so that by aid of these monumental crosses we might measure our journey by murders instead ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... of the outer appearance of that little house we imagined. Unless it happens to be the house of an exceptionally prosperous member of the utilitarian professions, it will lack something of the neat directness implicit in our description, something of that inevitable beauty that arises out of the perfect attainment of ends—for very many years, at any rate. It will almost certainly be tinted, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... satisfy the perfectness of his own character. And think how different the divine and the human standards of perfection! Not the outward fair colour and proportion merely, not the perfect fitness and adaptation, not the most utilitarian employment of every grain of dust, so that nothing is lost,—not even the grandest scale of working, is enough; but the dust on the moth's wing must be plumage, and the white chalk cliffs must be made of minute shells, each one of which shines ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... primitive Christianity might have been corrupted into Popery, but that Protestantism never could.[107] For a moment he hung in the wind. He might have been one of the earliest of Broad Churchmen. He might have been a Utilitarian and Necessitarian follower of Mr. J.S. Mill. But moral influences of a higher kind prevailed. And he became, in the most thoroughgoing yet independent fashion, a disciple of Mr. Newman. He brought to his new side a fresh power of controversial writing; but his chief influence ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Thomas—a gentleman of the "fine old school"—who, exasperated by the, to him, incomprehensible and insupportable turn of mind developed by his heir (whom he loved well enough, notwithstanding, in his own way), had hoped, in good utilitarian fashion, that a prolonged period of contact with the world, lubricated by a plentiful supply of money, might shake his "big sawney of a son" out of his sickly-sentimental views; that it would show him that gentlemen's society—and, "by gad, ladies' too"—was not a thing to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... slowed to a stop in front of the old white-frame house with its graceful utilitarian lines of roof and gable, he found himself wondering whether this were the dream or the other—the twenty years that had found him an orphan. That had given him enough inherited money to strike out for himself in New York. That had seen him win success as a highly-paid publicist. That ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... his nature embodied humanity without sentimentalism, firmness without obstinacy, individuality without selfishness; his activity was boundless, his devotion to his system so real as to admit no utilitarian sophistries into his scheme of personal benevolence. Before I had been with him a week, I respected him as I had never ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... comfortable split-log hut, where elegance and tidiness had place only in the more delicate moments of its occupant's retrospective imagination. Its furnishing belonged to the fashion of the prevailing industry, and had in its manufacture the utilitarian methods of the Western plains, rather than the more skilled workmanship of the furniture used in civilization. Thus, the bed was a stretcher supported on two packing-cases, the table had four solid legs that had once formed the sides of a third packing-case, while the cupboard, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... is seldom able to put himself in a purely esthetical mood. In this, as in many other features, Unamuno curiously resembles Wordsworth—whom, by the way, he is one of the few Spaniards to read and appreciate.[1] Like him, Unamuno is an essentially purposeful and utilitarian mind. Of the two qualities which the work of art requires for its inception—earnestness and detachment—both Unamuno and Wordsworth possess the first; both are deficient in the second. Their interest in their respective leading thought—survival in the first, virtue in the second—is too direct, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... that is, who from the educational opportunities they enjoy may naturally be expected to become the leaders of the nation's thought and practice.... Difficult as it is to measure the forces ... it is hardly to be denied that the power exercised by Bentham and the utilitarian school has, for better or for worse, passed into the hands of the idealists.... "The Rhine has flowed into the Thames" is the warning note rung out by Mr. Hobhouse. Carlyle introduced it, bringing it ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... The narrow utilitarian statement of aim that asserts that the purpose of education is to enable people to make a living neglects to take account of the necessity for social cooeperation. The difficulty with this statement of aim is that it is too narrow. We do hope by means of education to help ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... to do with being a gentleman, then, whether you take education in the highest sense, as the best discipline and expansion of the mind by classical and scientific study; or in the utilitarian sense, as the acquisition of useful knowledge, and a practical acquaintance with men and things; or in the fine lady sense, as the mastery of airs, and graces, and drawing-room accomplishments; or in the moralist's sense, as the curbing of our ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... impoverishment of our spiritual life; quite as far-reaching and as regrettable as that which follows from an unbridled individualism. Without the inner life of prayer and-meditation, lived for its own sake and for no utilitarian motive, neither our judgments upon the social order nor our active social service will be perfectly performed; because they will not be the channel of Creative Spirit expressing itself through us ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... and exclaimed: "These large tomes could not have been written by fools or for any foolish purpose. I never knew anything about them before, and I had no right to have undertaken the History of Ireland." His publishers, who had less scruples, or more utilitarian views, insisted on the completion of his task. Whatever their motives may have been, we may thank them for the result. Though Moore's history cannot now be quoted as an authority, it accomplished its work for the time, and promoted ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... in the meadows the careless, spendthrift ways of grass and flower and all things are not to be expressed. Seeds by the hundred million float with absolute indifference on the air. The oak has a hundred thousand more leaves than necessary, and never hides a single acorn. Nothing utilitarian—everything on a scale of splendid waste. Such noble, broadcast, open-armed waste is delicious to behold. Never was there such a lying proverb as "Enough is as good as a feast." Give me the feast; give me squandered millions of seeds, luxurious carpets ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... set with heavy chinaware for a meal. A huge caster graced the center of the table, containing glass receptacles for salt, red and black pepper, catsup, vinegar, and oil. Knives, forks, and spoons for two—all of utilitarian style—were arranged with mathematical ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... betokened that rare combination of mental endowments, that habitual train of deep, concentrated thought, mingled with somewhat dark passion, which characterizes the eagerly inquiring mind that struggles to lift itself far above common utilitarian themes. The placid element was as wanting in her physiognomy as in her character, and even the lines of the mouth gave evidence of strength and restlessness, rather than peace. Before her lay a book on geometry, and, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... bank, marked new avenues of wooden houses, and, across the bridge, the tops of tall buildings cut against the glow that shimmered about the town. At one end rose the great block of the Hulton factory, which lost something of its utilitarian ugliness at night. Its harsh, rectangular outline faded into the background of forest, and the rows of glimmering windows gave it a curious transparent look. It seemed to overflow with radiance and filled the air ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... was filled with statistics as to trade in hemp, cane-sugar, cocao, rice, copra, tobacco, and the like. I even had a hint here and there as to the geology of the group, but ruthlessly blue-pencilled out such bits of useful information, and while it may not be at all utilitarian, rejoice that I have been privileged to see these islands in a state of nature, before the engineer has honeycombed the virgin forest with iron rails; before the great heart of the hills is torn open for the gold, or coal, ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... Power had no option but to resort to more exigent means of attaining its end. In times of peace, working through myriad hands, it had constructed a thousand monuments of ornamental or utilitarian industry. These, with the commonweal they represented, were now threatened and must be protected at all costs. What more reasonable than to demand of those who had built, or of their successors in the perpetual inheritance of toil, that they should protect what they had reared. Hitherto, in most ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... thee, fair lake! Long may it be before thy rugged hills be stripped of their green garniture, or thy bright waters marred by the unpicturesque improvements of man's avarice!—for truly thou, in this utilitarian age, and at brief distance from America's metropolis, art young, and innocent, and unpolluted, as when the red man drank of thy pure waters, long centuries ere he dreamed of the pale-faced oppressors, who have ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... This is a very utilitarian age. Start almost any subject, propose almost any scheme, adventure, or investment, and the question is asked, "Will it pay?" The multitude are cautious; the lower stratum, the unsuccessful—the poor and the oppressed—are envious and often bitter and resentful; the successful ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... suppose that the vegetation, which is all that we really see, is continuous and without breaks. It would indeed be most extraordinary if there were not very many long stretches of land which, for some natural or utilitarian reasons, were either bare of vegetation or so sparsely covered as to appear bare when viewed from the earth through a telescope. Some parts of the canals in hilly or rocky ground may pass through tunnels, and thus cause apparent gaps in the lines; or ground may be incapable of bearing vegetation, ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... agreed that the main function of food is to repair the tissues of the body. Other effects are present, such as pleasure and sociability, but its chief benefit is reparative, so we may well regard the subject from a strictly utilitarian standpoint and inquire how we may produce the highest efficiency from our eating. Some of the important questions about eating are, how much to eat, what kind of food to eat, when to eat, what are the most favorable ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... utility—seem no adequate explanation. "The Egyptians," says Wilkinson, "may have deified some animals to insure their preservation, some to prevent their unwholesome meat being used as food." But no religion was ever established in this way. Man does not worship from utilitarian considerations, but from an instinct of reverence. It is possible, indeed, that such a reverential instinct may have been awakened towards certain animals, by seeing their vast importance arising ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... forcible. The Puritan thought his thought higher and his moral standards better than those of his successors. So they were. He could not be convinced that moral standards had nothing to do with it, and that utilitarian morality was good enough for him, as it was for the graceless. Nature had given to the boy Henry a character that, in any previous century, would have led him into the Church; he inherited dogma and a ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... inventors, let us remember that the first place is that of the great investigators, whose forceful intellects opened the way to secrets previously hidden from men. Let it be an honor and not a reproach to these men that they were not actuated by the love of gain, and did not keep utilitarian ends in view in the pursuit of their researches. If it seems that in neglecting such ends they were leaving undone the most important part of their work, let us remember that Nature turns a forbidding face to those who pay her court with the hope of gain, and ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... virtues, as it seemed at home. Yet she remarked that though every object was more or less ornamental, nothing had been placed in the rooms for the sake of ornament alone. Miss Carew, judged by her domestic arrangements, was a utilitarian before everything. There was a very handsome chimney piece; but as there was nothing on the mantel board, Alice made a faint effort to believe that it was inferior in point of taste to that in her own bedroom, which was covered with blue cloth, surrounded by fringe and brass headed nails, and ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... herself comparing the social graces of Mr. Austin the painter with those of Mr. Tillott the curate, very much to the advantage of the former—blushed to find herself so much interested in any conversation that was not strictly utilitarian or evangelical in its drift. Once or twice Austin spoke of his travels, his Australian experiences; and at each mention, Clarissa looked up eagerly, anxious to hear more. The history of her brother's past was a blank to her, and she was keenly interested by the ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... lead to tiresome delays. In New Milford, an inquisitive farmer requested us, in a somewhat ungracious manner, to give an account of ourselves. Percival replied, that we were acting under a commission from the Governor to ascertain the useful minerals of the State; whereupon our utilitarian friend immediately demanded to be informed how the citizens at large, including himself, were to be benefited by the undertaking,—putting question on question in a fashion which was most pertinacious and almost impertinent. Percival became ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... to say until his age drew towards nineteen, Peak pursued the Arts curriculum at Whitelaw. His mood on entering decided his choice, which was left free to him. Experience of utilitarian chemistry had for the present made his liberal tastes predominant, and neither the splendid laboratories of Whitelaw nor the repute of its scientific Professors tempted him to what had once seemed his natural direction. In the second year, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... ideas have tried to express themselves in Germany's capital: one is modern commerce, and the other, and more characteristic, is military glory. The commercial houses are naturally much the same as in the rest of Europe, gloomily utilitarian. The military in stone, however, is neither ornamental nor useful. Strange that the Kaiser, who was reputed to have quick intelligence, should not have felt how excruciatingly unspiritual and truly uninspiring the glory-statuary and architecture ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... Weihnachtsbaum—a romance and a wonder—that English Christmas-trees do not possess. For one thing, perhaps, in a land of forests the tree seems more in place; it is a kind of sacrament linking mankind to the mysteries of the woodland. Again the German tree is simply a thing of beauty and radiance; no utilitarian presents hang from its boughs—they are laid apart on a table—and the tree is purely splendour for splendour's sake. However tawdry it may look by day, at night it is a true thing of wonder, shining with countless ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... dear M., to be as disagreeably statistical and as praiseworthily matter-of-factish as the most dogged utilitarian could desire. I shall give you a full, true, and particular account of the discovery, rise, and progress of this place, with a religious adherence to dates which will rather astonish your unmathematical mind. But let me first describe the spot as it looked ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... sea receded three times and returned with singular force, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fish struggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at once made manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashed into the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest, when—alas for the poor fishermen!—the sea rushed in again and drove ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... had its monastery and its church. At present the greater number have been fortified by the Austrians, whose sentinel paces the once-peaceful shores, and challenges all passers with his sharp "Halt! Wer da!" and warns them not to approach too closely. Other islands have been devoted to different utilitarian purposes, and few are able to keep their distant promises of loveliness. One of the more faithful is the island of San Clemente, on which the old convent church is yet standing, empty and forlorn within, but without all draped in glossy ivy. After I had learned to row in the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... he endeavored to show all the benefits provided by prohibition. But he did it with figures. There was a column showing the increase of accounts in savings banks and another devoted to the decrease of inmates in hospitals, jails and almshouses. From a utilitarian point of view the figures, if correct, could hardly fail to be impressive, but little has been said by either side about the spiritual aspects of rum. Unfortunately there are no statistics on that, and yet it is the one phase of the question which interests us. Some ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... strongly practical turn of his mind, which is conspicuous in all his works. He was the reverse of a dreamer and had little patience with theorists. In his professional study he always aimed at bringing into the strongest light the utilitarian aspect of medicine, its ameliorating power on humanity, its real efficacy in preserving or restoring health and limiting human misery. On this his theory of therapeutics was based, and, inspired by the same ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... magical characters; and the mere idea will give to whatever aesthetic sentiment you may possess a brutal shock, and you will become, as I have become, an enemy of the Romaji- Kwai—that society founded for the ugly utilitarian purpose of introducing the use of ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... good and of the true, and you will not find any savage (provided he is not deficient in the ordinary mental ability of his tribe) who does not indicate an appreciation of every one of these in his own way. It is the idea of the useful which teaches him his utilitarian arts; which teaches him to build his house; to chip the flint for his weapon; to sharpen the stick to dig the place to drop the seed; and all those we call the arts of utility, the useful arts; and yet you will not find a savage tribe to-day but what goes somewhat above this; because among ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... the difficulties were overcome. Many of the Americans had no knowledge of French other than that which they had acquired since entering the French service, and this, as I have already hinted, had no great utilitarian value. An interpreter had been provided for them through the generosity and kindness of the Franco-American Committee in Paris; but it was impossible for him to be everywhere at once, and much was left to their own quickness ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... thirsty, I sought water at a little lonely cottage. Bees worked and sang over the thyme and marjoram in the garden; and in a homely sty lived a solemn black pig, a pig with a history. It was no common utilitarian pig, but the honoured guest of the old couple who lived there; and the pig knew it. A year before, their youngest and only surviving child, then a man of five-and-twenty, had brought his mother the result ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... arts, lacks any model in the realm of nature, it has had to work out its own laws, and its spontaneity and directness are the result. It has not become imitative, utilitarian or bound by arbitrary conventions. As Berlioz says in the Grotesques de la Musique: "Music exists by itself; it has no need of poetry, and if every human language were to perish, it would be none the less the most poetic, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... good sanitation, resulting in a degree of healthfulness unusually high for India; a noble pleasure garden, with privileged days for women; schools for the instruction of native youth in advanced art, both ornamental and utilitarian; and a new and beautiful palace stocked with a museum of extraordinary interest and value. Without the Maharaja's sympathy and purse these beneficences could not have been created; but he is a man of wide views and large generosities, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... refined, for Mr. Bertie Tremaine combined the Sybarite with the Utilitarian sage, and it secretly delighted him to astonish or embarrass an austere brother republican by the splendour of his family plate or the polished appointments of his household. To-day the individual to be influenced was Endymion, and the host, acting up to his ideal of a ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... verger was surrounded by a protecting wall, of more or less architectural pretense, with towers and accessories conforming to the style of the period, and decorative and utilitarian fountains, benches and ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... to allow her to go first into the large, finely-proportioned building, which was so charming a survival of eighteenth-century taste. The orangery was cool, fragrant, deserted; remote indeed from all that Lacville stands for in this ugly, utilitarian world. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... enlisting negroes as soldiers received early consideration. Black troops had fought in the Revolution; why, then, should not black men now fight in a war of which they themselves were the ultimate provocation? The idea pleased the utilitarian side of the Northern mind and shocked no Northern prejudice. In fact, as early as the spring of 1862 General Hunter, in the Department of the South, organized a negro regiment. In July, 1862, pending consideration of a bill concerning calling forth the militia, reported by the Senate Committee ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... therefore eagerly sought by agents for the leather merchants. The beautiful SMOKE or MIST TREE (R. cotinus), commonly imported from southern Europe to adorn our lawns (although a similar species grows wild in the Southwest), serves a more utilitarian purpose in supplying commerce with a rich orange-yellow dye-wood known as young fustic. All this tribe of shrubs and trees contain resinous, milky juice, drying dark like varnish, which in a Japanese species is transformed by the clever native artisans into their famous lacquer. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... except what led to some practical object in life. Education was considered by their founders as merely a step to making money. Science became a trade—a mere handmaid to art. Mammon was all in all. Their instruction was entirely utilitarian. Mechanics and Medicine, Hydraulics and Chemistry, Pneumatics and Hydrostatics, Anatomy and Physiology, constituted the grand staples of their education. What they taught was adapted only for professional students. One would suppose, from examining ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... stumbling, staggering—till he got to his destination. Then he dropped dead at the side of the Colonel the message had been sent to. And those are only two of thousands of true collie-anecdotes. Yet some fools are trying to get American dogs done away with, as 'non-utilitarian,' while the war lasts! As if the dogs in France, today, weren't earning their overseas brothers' ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... the gay colors, the glittering jewelry, and waving plumes, all contributed their part to the splendor of the show; and in those days a gentleman possessed at least this advantage, lost to him in these practical utilitarian times, that he could not by any possibility be mistaken for his own valet de chambre—a misfortune which has befallen many a one, the most aristocratic not excepted, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... orange blossoms, manifestly wax, covered the metallic gold of her hair. Her countenance was unperturbed, statuesque, and pink. As the sentimental clamour of the organ died the steam pipes took up, with renewed vigour, their utilitarian noise. "Why don't they turn them off?" Mariana exclaimed in his ear. Personally he enjoyed such an accompaniment to what ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... were not in need of frocks, for before they left England their mother had stocked their boxes as though she was never to see a draper's shop again. But then, she had been in a severely utilitarian mood, and when she cut out the garments it had not occurred to her that Fashion would ever come across the fields ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a sufficiently liberal concession; Nageli, however, went much further when he said: "I do not know among plants a morphological modification which can be explained on utilitarian principles." (See "More Letters", Vol. II. page 375 (footnote).) If this were true the field of Natural Selection would be so seriously restricted, as to leave the theory only ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... memory and even the substance of Dante occur again and again. But Dante's inspiration was spiritual: Machiavelli's frankly pagan, and with the latter Fortune takes the place of God. Dante did not love the Papacy, but Machiavelli, pointing out how even in ancient Rome religion was politic or utilitarian, leads up to his famous attack upon the Roman Church, to which he attributes all the shame and losses, political, social, moral, national, that Italy has suffered at her hands. And now for the first ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Confucius, and that of Buddhism in its Chinese form. The difficulty in understanding Tao-ism comes from its appearing under three entirely distinct forms: (1) as a philosophy of the absolute or unconditioned, in the great work of the Tse-Lao, or old teacher;[16] (2) as a system of morality of the utilitarian school,[17] which resolves duty into prudence; and (3) as a system of magic, connected with the belief in spirits. In the Tao-te-king we have the ideas of Lao himself, which we will endeavor to state; premising that they are considered very obscure and ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... the project, from a merely utilitarian point of view, is that the future of these young women appears rather vague. The demand for female Hindu teachers in India is at present small, and a few only have found employment in this way. Three or four have become nurses or midwives. Knitting, ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... free of—or has each one of us signed with the blood of his human nature a compact with some such spiritual power, with the demonic element within him, with that spirit of negation, of cynicism, of cold unideal utilitarian worldly-wisdom which mocks at faith and love and every high and tender impulse—that part of our nature which, when some poor girl is sinking in the abyss, prompts us to answer our heart's appeal with the sneer of Mephistopheles: 'She isn't the first!'? Surely we can well understand ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... Varro and Cicero on education; the old Roman education of the body and character; causes of its breakdown; the new education under Greek influence; schools, elementary; the sententiae in use in schools; arithmetic; utilitarian character of teaching; advanced schools; teaching too entirely linguistic and literary; assumption of toga virilis; study of rhetoric and law; oratory the main object; results of this; Cicero's son at the University of Athens: his ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... think that in more men the shell of secrecy would have had to open, the pent-in abscess to burst and gain relief, even though the ear that heard the confession were unworthy. The Catholic church, for obvious utilitarian reasons, has substituted auricular confession to one priest for the more radical act of public confession. We English-speaking Protestants, in the general self-reliance and unsociability of our nature, seem to find it enough if we take ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... there is an office which bears the inscription, "Lost Articles." In the midst of the busy traffic it stands as a perpetual denial of the utilitarian theory that all men are governed by enlightened self-interest. A very considerable proportion of the traveling public can be trusted regularly ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... conditions that revive the essential part and drop the minor details, and this "essential" which survives dissociation depends on subjective causes, the principal ones of which are at first practical, utilitarian reasons. It is the tendency already mentioned to ignore what is of no value, to exclude that from consciousness. Helmholtz has shown that in the act of seeing, various details remain unnoticed because they are immaterial in the concerns of life; and ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... at her elbow. She had had a soft little sleigh bell substituted for the harsh, commercial clang and even the most utilitarian call took on a tone of revelry, but now it had an especially gay and lilting sound, she thought. Michael Daragh's voice over the wire lacked its usual quality of serenity; he sounded unsure of himself; almost—shy, and Jane's grip on the receiver ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... scientific, since the publication and scientific discussion of the observations will be carried out elsewhere; but if, while showing the difficulties under which we had to work, it emphasizes the value of Antarctic Expeditions from a purely utilitarian point of view, and the need for further continuous research into the conditions obtaining in the immediate neighbourhood of the Pole, it will ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... claws being relieved and modelled with the highest care and most artistic finish. The form of the image, in fact, generally resembles more the beautiful green beetle which I have often caught in the mountains around Rome, than his plebeian and utilitarian cousin, the Scarabaeus pilularius. The contour of the stone beneath the Scarabaeus proper is markedly distinguished from the insect portion, and ornamented with a relieved cornice, more or less elaborate according to the general finish of the stone. I have one in which this cornice of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Hubert, permitted by his anxious relatives to anticipate the term of the family mourning, had been showily and expensively united to his heiress; the Hotel de Chelles had been piped, heated and illuminated in accordance with the bride's requirements; and the young couple, not content with these utilitarian changes had moved doors, opened windows, torn down partitions, and given over the great trophied and pilastered dining-room to a decorative painter with a new theory of the human anatomy. Undine had silently assisted at this spectacle, and ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... for an instant under favorable light refraction. The object of British khaki, French blue and German green is invisibility, but nothing can be designed that will not be visible under certain conditions. A motley such as the "tanks" were painted would be best, but the most utilitarian of generals has not yet dared to suggest motley as a uniform for an army. It occurred to me how distinct the action would have been if the participants had worn the blue coats and red trousers in which the French fought their early battles ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... scientific treatment of this subject, an inquiry into its utilitarian relations would be superfluous—even wearisome. But on an occasion like the present, you will not, perhaps, think it out of place if I briefly answer the question, What is the use of an observatory, and what benefit may be expected ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... deal tables, three or four young draughtsmen were busily engaged in elaborating his architectural projects. The outer door of the office bore the sign: Peyton and Gill, Architects; but Gill was an utilitarian person, as unobtrusive as his name, who contented himself with a desk in the workroom, and left Dick to lord it alone in the small apartment to which clients were introduced, and where the social part of the business was ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... instruction tends to refine his feelings and elevate his heart depends altogether upon how it is given. Probably the average country boy has no more spiritual conception of the matter than the average city boy, though he may have a more wholesome and, so to speak, utilitarian thought of it. His interest at least reaches out to results, for the successful multiplication of the stock on the farm may be a matter of vital ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... by which even the child is finally animated. Men do not reach their best accomplishments, if indeed they reach any accomplishment, through the exclusive recognition, either unconscious or instinctive, of a utilitarian result, or a result which can be couched in terms of pleasure or personal satisfaction as the goal of effort. They may state the goal to themselves in these terms; but this is, then, the statement of what is really a fictitious principle, a principle in positing ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... a more utilitarian purpose, however, than bracing faint-hearted spirits. "There is no bird that compares with it in destroying the female canker-worm moths and their eggs," writes a well-known entomologist. He calculates that as ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... a very utilitarian view of the mind; and I confess I think it a partial one, since the logical force of beliefs and ideas, their truth or falsehood as assertions, has been overlooked altogether, or confused with the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... "On utilitarian as well as social principles, we should try to instruct our children in good manners; for whether we wish them to succeed in the world, or to adorn society, the point is equally important. We must never lose sight of the fact, that here teachers and professors ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... of morals an inquiry not foreign to the subject of this book.—Modern utilitarian view as to that origin.—Mr. Darwin's speculation as to the origin of the abhorrence of incest.—Cause assigned by him insufficient.—Care of the aged and infirm opposed by "Natural Selection;" ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... omission of certain aspects lends itself to misunderstanding. Our previous book suggested to one reader, at least, that we regarded subjects other than those we treated of, as possessing no educational value other than a purely utilitarian one. That was not at all the impression we wished to create, and it is with a view to correcting it that we attempt a brief general survey of the non-political subjects and their place in a curriculum which took politics as its centre. But we offer these remarks with much ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... letter once more from beginning to end. It was duller than ever. It reflected its writer; she had always thought him unromantic, and now he seemed to her intolerably prosaic, conceited, pettifogging, utilitarian. To be his wife! She had rather slave as a nursery-governess all her life! And how could she write fiction with such a one for mentor and company? He would expect her to be methodic, to see that eggs were fresh, and beds well aired. So, by thinking, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... centers), and gradually convert it into walks, drives, arbors, &c., for the recreation and solace of their citizens through all succeeding time. Should a portion be needed for cemetery or other utilitarian purposes, it may be set off when wanted; and ultimately a railroad will afford the poor the means of going thither and returning at a small expense. If something of this sort is ever to be done, it cannot be done too soon; for the forests are annually ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... something new. Men with brain and muscle were needed in the wide, silent land that would soon waken to busy life; but one must not give way to romantic impulses. Stern experience had taught Festing caution, his views were utilitarian, and he distrusted sentiment. Still, looking back on years of strenuous effort that aimed at practical objects, he felt that there was something he had missed. One must work to live, but perhaps life had more to offer than the money one earned ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... The nature of things which one seeks to know better is the good of things, the absolute being which is the goal of all thinking is the very good itself. Plato does not use the term good in any merely utilitarian sense. Indeed it is very significant that for Plato there is no cleavage between theoretical and practical interests. To be morally good is to know the good, to set one's heart on the true object of affection; and to be theoretically sound is to understand ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... to start for the theatre. George Bross joined him on the stoop. They smoked pensively, while the afterglow faded from the western sky and veil after veil of shadow crept stealthily out of the east, masking the rectangular, utilitarian ugliness of the street, deepening its dusk to darkness. Street lamps, touched by the flame-tipped wand of a belated lamplighter, bourgeoned spasmodically like garish flowers of the metropolitan night. Across the way gas-lit windows glowed like squares on some great, blurred ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... or a phrase, is as essential to a piece of writing as is the design or composition to a picture. It satisfies the emotional need of the child which is as essential in real education as is the intellectual. Without this design, language remains on the utilitarian level,—where, to be sure, we usually find it in ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... spread misery around; but they produced also their vindicators of the oppressed; their Bayards and Lancelots, chevalliers sans peur et sans reproche,—of whose spirit of candour, and fair and open and honourable dealing, it might be well if this our intellectual and utilitarian age had inherited ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... The utilitarian impulse, though frequently blamed for the "desecration" of our churchyards, is really less accountable for these conversions than the culpable neglect which in too many cases has forced the only measure ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... two qualities most often denied to Browning, passion and beauty. They are the contradiction to critics, other than ours, who regard Browning as wholly a philosophic poet, which is to say a poet who wrote poetry not for its own sake but for purely utilitarian purpose; not that poetry of the emotions is not useful—it is on a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... a supreme judgment of Heaven upon a society given up to unrestrained licentiousness. Whether he was right or wrong is not the point. He was as far as possible from being, in the modern sense, a scientific historian. Yet in some respects he was utilitarian enough. The condition of England was to him more important than any constitutional change, any triumph in diplomacy, or any victory in war, and this fact explains apparently inconsistent admiration of Peel, who though a Parliamentary statesman, had accomplished a solid achievement ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... realism was thoroughly congenial to the matter-of-fact utilitarian spirit of the time, and was in some sense in harmony with a 'return to Nature.' But it was unconsciously becoming divorced from some of the great movements of thought, of which it failed to perceive the significance. A new inspiration was showing itself, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... epithet wiser too literally. Perhaps the poet speaks ironically, or means by some other wiser man, one allied in character and temperament to a modern utilitarian Philosopher. Wordsworth seems to have had the lines of George Wither in ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... atmosphere, where men are accustomed to give a reason for the faith that is in them, and hence it is necessary, in opening any discussion such as he had provoked, that he should assign some ground of opposition or support—Christian, Pagan, utilitarian, constitutional, optimist, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Friendship. Yes, foolish Heathen that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could have loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his brother once and always. By degrees, however, I understood the new time, and its wants. If man's Soul is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of Stomach, what else is the true meaning of Spiritual Union but an Eating together? Thus we, instead of Friends, are Dinner-guests; and here as elsewhere have ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... historical circumstances of the arrival of the Ouled-Nail in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful (Note by Basset).—It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation has ever been offered) {248} that this strange practice is a modified utilitarian form of an ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable results, since it protected the girl against the brutality of her kindred until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have insured its persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first was different. "La premiere union ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... governor had not reckoned on this. He was only "bluffing," and now he had to climb down, and the images were removed. On another occasion, described by the same historian, Pilate had seized the sacred money at the Temple and employed it in building an aqueduct, a piece of utilitarian profanity which enraged the Jews to such an extent that a vast crowd gathered, clamouring against Pilate and insisting on the stoppage of the works. Then the governor sent soldiers among the people, disguised in the garb of civilians, who at a ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... songs are imperishable. O friend! what moots it to them or to us who gave this epic or that lyric to immortality? The singer belongs to a year, his song to all time. I know it is the custom now to credit the author with his work, for this is a utilitarian age, and all things are by the pound or the piece, and for ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... unscrupulous photographer (as may very likely commonly be the case) might save money on negatives, after he had a stock of a little variety, by snapping babies with an unloaded camera and printing from old plates, without anybody's being the wiser. (Here, indeed, would be a utilitarian motive behind the baby's being naked of articles of identification.) It is, alas! undermining to the pride of race to reflect that that photograph of one's cousin's fine new baby Edward, which reminded every one so much of the infant's mother, may not impossibly have been ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... and to continue to be a great literary force, when fifty years have altered all the conditions in which he wrote and the purposes and ideas which he treated. It cannot be said that Carlyle's effective influence is less now than it was a generation ago. It has lived through the Utilitarian and Evolution movements and has not been extinguished by them. And Thomas Carlyle bids fair to enter into that sacred band whose names outlive their own century and give some special ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... naively utilitarian point of view is by no means confined to the lowest forms of religion; in the Old Testament, for example, the appeal to Yahveh is generally based on his assumed power to bestow temporal blessings,[5] and this is a widespread attitude at the present day in religious communities, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... flocks rapidly thinning, and occasionally a deer fell to the lot of the shrewd hunter. John liked to hunt and fish. He wasted time that way, his neighbors said, and his wife was of the same opinion. It is true, he possessed certain qualities which, even in their utilitarian eyes, commanded some slight respect. He was so close to nature in his thoughts and fancies that he knew many things which they did not, and which had a money value. It was he, for instance, who first recognized ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... At no period has this process of demolition gone on in Scotland more rapidly and ruthlessly than during the last fifty or a hundred years. That tide of agricultural improvement which has passed over the country, has, in its utilitarian course, swept away—sometimes inevitably, often most needlessly—the aggers and ditches of ancient camps, sepulchral barrows and mounds, stone circles and cairns, earth-raths, and various other objects of deep antiquarian interest. Indeed, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... it, and for what is it ill fitted. The purposes for which brick can be best used depend, of course, upon its qualities. Speaking generally, such purposes are very numerous and very various, especially the utilitarian purposes, though rich and varied ornamental work can also ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... what Dickens did for Christmas we must consider the question of what Christmas did for Dickens. How did it happen that this bustling, nineteenth-century man, full of the almost cock-sure common-sense of the utilitarian and liberal epoch, came to associate his name chiefly in literary history with the perpetuation of a half pagan and half Catholic festival which he would certainly have called an antiquity and might easily have called ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... in whose hearts are chords strung by Nature to sympathise with the beautiful and the true, will recognise in these compositions the presence of more genius than it was supposed this utilitarian age had devoted to the loftier exercises ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and versatile diplomatist like Bernhard von Buelow appears to be best adapted to the personal and political necessities of the present situation." Count Buelow, indeed, though, like Bismarck, a "realist," utilitarian and opportunist in his policy, made no effort to emulate the masterful independence of the great chancellor. He was accused, indeed, of being little more than the complacent executor of the emperor's will, and defended ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... 'Warrior,' the first sea-going iron-clad, and of beauty indisputable, and the celebrated 'Wyvern,' with its tripod masts. Others later made, and always more and more stumpy and square, need a strong pressure of utilitarian conviction to restrain us from pronouncing that they are downright ugly. But we shall soon become reconciled, and then enamoured, of forms that are associated with proved utility, and the grand three-decker of our youth will look as clumsy then as the ships of Queen Elizabeth do ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... threw aside all conventional beliefs, and his religion henceforth was a deep love of and a joyous faith in all life. Although Keller was in many respects decidedly matter-of-fact, a calm objective observer with a strong leaning toward utilitarian ideals—he had all the homely virtues of his ancestry—he nevertheless delighted in a myth-creating fancy. Thus Keller is very much akin to his countryman Arnold Bcklin, whom the German world honors ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... ends, and we have to drive sixteen miles across country, a delightful expedition in favourable weather. The twin towns, old and new Oloron, present the contrast so often seen throughout France, picturesque, imposing antiquity beside utilitarian ugliness and uniformity. The open suburban spaces present the appearance of an enormous drying-ground, in which are hung the blankets of the entire department. Blankets, woollen girdles or sashes, men's bonnets are manufactured here. "Pipers, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... immediately serviceable in some profitable occupation of life, to the neglect of those studies which are only of use in training the intellect and cultivating and broadening the higher intelligence. To this purely material and utilitarian idea of life, the higher colleges and universities everywhere are urged to conform themselves. Thus is the utilitarian spirit eating away the foundations of a higher intellectual life, applying to everything ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... an immaculate grey suit and a Panama hat, and regarding him critically, Darsie felt another shock of surprise at being compelled to admire a man! Hitherto she had regarded the race as useful, intelligent creatures, strictly utilitarian in looks, as in attire, but to-day it was impossible to deny that the beauty was on Ralph's side more than on that of his companions. The poise of the tall, slim figure was so graceful and easy that it was a pleasure to behold; the perfect ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... people, and don't care for poetry:' though we DO, by the way, profess to be very proud of our poets: while healthful amusements, cheerful means of recreation, and wholesome fancies, must fade before the stern utilitarian ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... so utilitarian?" I asked, laughingly. "Must you always have some reason for everything you do? I do so many things just for the mere pleasure of doing them, I'm afraid you will have a very ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... which are available at all times. There is no item in the household budget which returns as much satisfaction, comfort, and happiness in proportion to its cost as artificial light. It is an artistic medium of great potentiality, and light in a narrow utilitarian sense is always a by-product of artistic lighting. The insignificant cost of modern lighting may be emphasized in many ways. The interest on the investment in a picture or a vase which cost $25.00 will usually cover the cost of operating any decorative lamp in the home. A great ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... appurtenances, we must name the andirons—or, if the fuel is to be coal, then the basket grate. I have wondered sometimes why the philosophers have not hit upon the andiron as a particularly fitting subject for pleasurable rumination. There are so few things which combine to such a degree the purely utilitarian with the eminently decorative qualities. Most things which do combine the two in any real measure have been developed on the side of one at the expense of the other quality. Take man's dress coat, for example, the cut-away ...
— Making a Fireplace • Henry H. Saylor
... once perceptible, and the earliest means were taken to bring the question to an issue. Mr. Hume, a parsimonious economist, of niggard principle and grovelling sentiment, undertook the office of coercing the Irish. He gave notice of a motion for a call of the House. This man, a mean utilitarian, had been rejected by the country of his birth and the country of his adoption, and found refuge in an Irish constituency, that returned him without solicitation and without expense. He repaid them and ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... of the Church should be similarly dealt with. This was, in one sense, as the previous step had been, the assertion of the national interest over the special privilege; in another sense it was merely one step more in those numerous secularizations of Church property which the utilitarian and unreligious 18th century had carried out. It was proposed to take over for the use of the State all the property of the Church and in return to pay salaries to its priests. This represented the acquisition of real property valued at the capital ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... itself, the tube through which the car flies, is entirely hidden from sight. Where it is above ground, trees and shrubbery screen it from view, so that it does not mar the landscape. We think much of this, and should regret exceedingly if it became necessary for any such utilitarian object to interfere with our aesthetic ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... to the ground without the knowledge of the Creator, then we must conclude that the life of the ant is of as much importance in His eyes as that of the ox or sheep. We repeat, we are not posing as advocates of indiscriminate and wanton slaughter, but on utilitarian grounds, we consider the use of the flesh of animals, ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn nap of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... lexicography were hobbies with me for a time, but before a great while I thought I needed "mental drill"; so I turned my attention to mathematics. The subject became dry and uninteresting in the usual length of time; besides, I began seriously to question mathematics as being in the utilitarian class of studies. Certainly very little of it was necessary as a business qualification. I recalled the fact that one of the best business men, in a mediocre station of life, whom I had ever known, could not write his own name and his wife had to count his money for him. So I ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... this enormity is hard, grim, dumb; it is the enormity of mathematical power applied to utilitarian ends of solidity and durability. These leagues of palaces, of warehouses, of business structures, of buildings describable and indescribable, are not beautiful, but sinister. One feels depressed by the mere sensation of the enormous life which created them, life without sympathy; of their prodigious ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... of education is purely utilitarian, and is expressed more clearly by the word power than by any other. Its object is to give the man power to meet the problems of life, and to develop all his faculties to the greatest degree. The word "utilitarian," however, is to be interpreted ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... yellowish-gray color of the plastering in a narrow band above and a broad band below it. Moreover, the principal opening of the larger room was specially treated; in the application of the whitewash a narrow border or frame of the natural color was left surrounding it. The attempt to apply decoration not utilitarian in character is rare among the ruins here. It implies either a late period in the occupancy of this region, or an occupancy of the site by a people who had practiced this method of house-building longer or under more ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... that his principle of utility was a new invention of his own. It would, as Mill has said, imply ignorance of the history of philosophy and of general literature not to be aware that in all ages of philosophy one of its schools has been utilitarian, not only from the time of Epicurus, but long before. But what is certain, and what would of itself be enough to entitle Helvetius to consideration, is that from Helvetius the idea of general utility as the foundation of morality ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... moralists were mainly occupied with inherited topics of debate. They gave precision to the questions under discussion; and their controversies defined the traditional opposition of ethical opinion, and separated moralists into two hostile schools known as Utilitarian ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... for a traveller to hold on fast, and when a lady and gentleman ride side by side, it is usual for the gentleman to protect the lady by throwing his arm round his companion's waist. This delicate attention is so much of a utilitarian necessity as in no way to imply ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... was the greatest philosopher and musician and theologist, that ever lived on earth, except her Son, Who, at Chartres, is still an Infant under her guardianship. Her taste was infallible; her sentence eternally final. This church was built for her in this spirit of simple-minded, practical, utilitarian faith,—in this singleness of thought, exactly as a little girl sets up a doll-house for her favourite blonde doll. Unless you can go back to your dolls, you are out of place here. If you can go back to them, and get rid for one small hour ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... moment a girl marries in New England she is apt to become a drudge, or a lay figure on which to exhibit the latest fashions. She never has beautiful hands, and she would not have a beautiful face if a utilitarian society could "apply" her face to anything but the pleasure of the eye. Her hands lose their shape and softness after childhood, and domestic drudgery destroys her beauty of form and softness and bloom of complexion after marriage. To correct, or rather to break up, this despotism ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... am of antiquarian matters, this sounds very curious; and I send it you in case you may find it worthy of insertion, as provocative of discussion, and with the utilitarian idea that I may gain some information ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... having, in past times, come to see that truthfulness was useful, "the habit of approving truth-speaking and fidelity to engagements, which was first based on this ground of utility, became so rooted, that the utilitarian ground of it was forgotten, and we find ourselves springing to the belief in truth-speaking and fidelity to engagements from an inherited tendency." Similarly throughout, Mr. Hutton has so used the word "utility," and so interpreted it on ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... that of pleasure-seekers thus along the margin of the sea. The configuration of this part of the County Antrim, however, explains the position of the road, and justifies the engineer who was so happily enabled to combine the utilitarian with the romantic. A series of deep cut gorges, locally known as "The Glens," intersect the country, running at right angles to the coast-line and thus forming a succession of gigantic ridges, over which it would be impossible to drive a road. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... described, circumcision is not for ornamental purposes. According to the Manbo's way of thinking it serves a more utilitarian purpose, for it is supposed to be essential to the procreation of children. How such a belief first originated I have been unable to learn, but nevertheless the belief is universal, strong, and abiding. To be called uncircumcised is one ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... complained to Alfonso of injustice, while the cardinal's numerous friends considered his banishment too severe a punishment. Ippolito had a great following in Ferrara. He was a lavish man of the world, while the duke, owing to his utilitarian ways and practical life, repelled the nobility. A party was formed which advocated a revolution. The house of Este had survived many of these attempts. One had occurred when Ercole ascended ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... be prevented: by the voluntary absence of the active, or by the resistance of the passive agent. Whence two systems of morals arise, not antagonistic but concurrent; religious or philosophical morality, and the morality to which I permit myself to apply the name economical (utilitarian). ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... the Wyllyses; but the next morning she rose with the chickens, and before the October sun, to pursue, as usual, her daily labours. It was truly surprising how much Patsey Hubbard found time to do in a single day, and that without being one of your fussy, utilitarian busy-bodies, whose activity is all physical, and who look upon half an hour passed in quiet thought, or innocent recreation, as so much time thrown away. Our friend Patsey's career, from childhood, had been one of humble industry, self-forgetfulness, and active charity; her time in the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... represented by man himself and his nearest relatives, is it of human interest to inquire just what branches and main stems will be come upon in tracing back the lineage of this particular offshoot. This attempt had, perhaps, no vast, vital importance in the utilitarian sense in which these terms are oftenest used, but at least it had human interest. Important or otherwise, it was the task that lay open to zoology, and apparently its only task, so soon as the Darwinian hypothesis had ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... popularly known. The Pueblos of the Rio Grande use many baskets, which they obtain chiefly from the Jicarillas in exchange for corn. During late years many of these jicarillas have been disposed of to traders. Like the Navaho they make but little pottery, and that only for utilitarian purposes. ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... array of monitors, craft of ugly but utilitarian design, low-lying, and mounting two 14-inch guns, had assembled for the purpose of making it hot for the Hun on the morrow. Only light-draughted craft were to be employed in the attack, since they could approach within very ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... a most comfortable and strictly utilitarian structure. The entrance, dug with great and persistent toil from the very bottom of the bank, for the better discouragement of the muskrat's deadliest enemy, the mink, ran inward for nearly two feet, and then upward on a long slant some five or six feet through the natural ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... we are under no further obligations to our fellow-citizens. This paradox, for such it is, has mainly acquired notoriety though the advocacy of Hobbes, though it has sometimes been ignorantly attributed to Bentham and other writers of what is called the utilitarian school. But, be this as it may, it is so plainly inconsistent with some of the most obvious facts of human nature, and specially with the existence of that large and essential group of emotions which we call the sympathetic feelings, as well as with the constitution of family, ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler |
