Avail Quotes
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Since Life is but a Dream, Why toil to no avail?
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More Avail Quotes
There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
Logan Pearsall Smith— 1931Afterthoughts,'Life and Human Nature'.
There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
Logan Pearsall Smith— Life and Human Nature
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. [...] A full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason ?, nor Can they talk ? but, Can they suffer?
jeremy bentham— Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), Ch. 17, p. 309: Of the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence
There is no substitute for talent. Industryand all the virtues are of no avail.
— 1928 Point Counter Point, ch.13.
I will sing no more songs: the pride of my country I sang Through forty long years of good rhyme, without any avail; And no one cared even as much as the half of a hang For the song or the singer, so here is an end of the tale.
Da i bh| dh OÅ Bruadair— Adapted from the Irish by James Stephens. Irish playwright. His early plays, including Juno and the Paycock (1924), deal with Dublin working-class life and were written for the Abbey Theatre. His later, more experimental, plays include Cockadoodle Dandy (1949).
We I hope shall be left free to avail ourselves of the advantages of neutrality: and yet much I fear the English, or rather their stupid king, will force us out of it. (...) Common sense dictates therefore that they should let us remain neuter: ergo they will not let us remain neuter. I never yet found any other general rule for foretelling what they will do, but that of examining what they ought not to do.
— Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, then ambassador to Great Britain. (1789-09-28)
The legislator commands the future; to be feeble will avail him nothing: it is for him to will what is good and to perpetuate it; to make man what he desires to be: for the laws, working upon the social body, which is inert in itself, can produce either virtue or crime, civilized customs or savagery.
louis antoine de saint-just— Le législateur commande à l’avenir; il ne lui sert de rien d’être faible: c’est à lui de vouloir le bien et de le perpétuer; c’est à lui de rendre les hommes ce qu’il veut qu’ils soient: selon que les lois animent le corps social, inerte par lui-même, il en résulte les vertus ou les crimes, les bonnes mœurs ou la férocité.
— Discours sur la Constitution à donner à la France, speech to the National Convention (April 24, 1793).
To those privileged ones -- among whom we count ourselves -- the high-resounding "isms" to which their contemporaries ask them to give their allegiance are all equally futile: bound to be betrayed, defeated, and finally rejected by men at large, if containing anything really noble; bound to enjoy, for the time being, some sort of noisy success, if sufficiently vulgar, pretentious, and soul-killing to appeal to the growing number of mechanically conditioned slaves that crawl about our planet, posing as free men; all destined to prove, ultimately, of no avail.
savitri devi— The Lightning and the Sun (Calcutta: Temple Press, 1958, p. 3, )
No human being has the faculty of originally creating matter, which is more than nature itself can do. But any one may avail himself of the agents offered him by nature, to invest matter with utility.
jean-baptiste say— Book I, On Production, Chapter II, p. 65
If we could offer to the ungodly a worldly plan which would ensure their prospering in all that they undertake, how eagerly they would embrace it! And yet when GOD Himself reveals an effectual plan to His people how few avail themselves of it!.
james hudson taylor— (J. Hudson Taylor. A Ribband of Blue and Other Bible Studies. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 41.)
"What is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my tale; And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring When prayer is of no avail?
william wordsworth— Force of Prayer.
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood: if they be repealed or revised before they are promulged, or undergo such incessant changes, that no man who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.
Alexander Hamilton— No. 62
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
thomas jefferson— Letter to Alexander von Humboldt (6 December 1813)Scanned letter at The Library of CongressTranscript at The Library of Congress.
An umbrella is of no avail against a Scotch mist.
james russell lowell— On a Certain Condesceneion in Foreigners.
The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law.
george sutherland— Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 (1932).
In a doubtful case, a good character will have some weight with the Court, but in a clear conviction, it can be of no avail.
— Willes, J., R. v. Bembridge (1783), 22 How. St. Tr. 160.
No man can avail himself of his own fraud to avoid the law. We have instances even in the criminal law where a man shall not be permitted to avoid the law by fraud.
— Grove, J., Doe v. Carter (1799), 8 T. R. 302.
"What is good for a bootless bene?" With these dark words begins my Tale; And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring When Prayer is of no avail?
william wordsworth— William Wordsworth, Force of Prayer.
These authors do not avail themselves of the invention of letters for the purpose of conveying, but of concealing their ideas.
— Lord Holland, Life of Lope de Vega.
It will require more than a few hours of fasting and prayer to cast out such demons as selfishness, worldliness, and unbelief. Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and of conduct.
— Theodore L. Cuyler, p. 507. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whole book full of them?
— Martial, -Epigrams, Book VHI, Epigram 29.
We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament.
rudolf bultmann— Rudolf Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (1984), p. 4
We grant no dukedoms to the few, We hold like rights and shall; Equal on Sunday in the pew, On Monday in the mall. For what avail the plough or sail, Or land, or life, if freedom fail?
ralph waldo emerson— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Boston, Stanza 5.
It is typical of the contradictions that break women's hearts that when they avail themselves of their fragile right to abortion they often, even usually, went with grief and humiliation to carry out a painful duty that was presented to them as a privilege. Abortion is the latest in a long line of non-choices that begin at the very beginning with the time and the place and the manner of lovemaking.
— Germaine Greer, quoted in The New Republic (October 5, 1992).
And be on your guard against a day when no soul will avail another in the least, neither will any compensation be accepted from it, nor will intercession profit it, nor will they be helped.
— 123 Maulana Muhammad Ali translation
This -- and (know) that Allah will weaken the struggle of the disbelievers. If you sought a judgment, the judgment has indeed come to you and if you desist, it is better for you. And if you return (to fight), We (too) shall return and your forces will avail you nothing, though they may be many; and (know) that Allah is with the believers.
— 18-19 Maulana Muhammad Ali translation
The foundation of all free government and all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth. Young persons must not only be furnished with knowledge, but they must be accustomed to subordination and subjected to the authority and influence of good principles. It will avail little that youths are made to understand truth and correct principles, unless they are accustomed to submit to be governed by them... And any system of education... which limits instruction to the arts and sciences, and rejects the aids of religion in forming the character of citizens, is essentially defective."
noah webster—
