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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books



... him by his jealousy of the honours paid Camillus. For so darkened did his mind become, that without reflecting what were the institutions to which Rome was accustomed, or testing the material he had to work on, when he would have seen that it was still unfit to be moulded to evil ends, he set himself to stir up tumults against the senate and against ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... ....Whatever power in government may be given to the men of our new possessions in selecting their rulers, let the same privilege be accorded the women. It may be said that the women are ignorant, and need yet to be held in subjection—that they are unfit to have a voice in the new order of things. Let us not be deceived. Probably the women are no more ignorant and stupid than the masses of men in these newly acquired regions—excepting always the few men whom circumstances ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... service, he had seen men meant for better things broken as a reed on the wheel of military formalism; he had seen them retiring when but in the prime of life, broken in spirit, unfit for any new career, impaired in health, perfectly useless—victims of the conventional ideas that rule supreme in the army. Others he had seen forced to resign, overloaded with a burden of debt, ruined financially, physically, morally bankrupt,—all ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... enthusiastic man, deepening his tone as he became more earnest, "suppose that I am not killed, but only severely injured and mangled so as to be utterly unfit to attend to my worldly ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... essential to the practical question in dispute: since any woman, who succeeds in an open profession, proves by that very fact that she is qualified for it. And in the case of public offices, if the political system of the country is such as to exclude unfit men, it will equally exclude unfit women: while if it is not, there is no additional evil in the fact that the unfit persons whom it admits may be either women or men. As long therefore as it is acknowledged that even a few women may be fit for these duties, the laws which shut the door on ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... another bearer; that in place of the messenger, who has become blind and deaf, there should come the true Messenger who first opens the eyes of Israel, and then those of the Gentiles,—that the destination of Israel, which the members are unfit to realize, should be realized by the head. We are not at liberty to say that the servant who had become blind and deaf shall be converted, shall put off the old man and put on the new man, and shall then accomplish the great things which, in the prophecies of the Servant of God, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour," sternly said Major Hardwicke, "to consider the propriety of resigning instantly your executorship of your brother's estate in favor of your son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward! You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your accounts passed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her marriage. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... smile passed over Polly's face as she returned her thanks for the new pupil, for she remembered a time when Mrs. Shaw considered her "sweet songs" quite unfit for a fashionable young lady's repertoire. "Where ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... vexatious, that the rate-payers are not at liberty either to limit the use of the road, for which they pay, to themselves, or to allow it to fall into disrepair. An indictment of the road lies at common law, if it becomes unfit for traffic, even at the instance of any party using the road, though he does not pay any part of the rate. In other words, the neighbouring landholders are compelled to keep up the roads for the benefit of the public generally, who contribute nothing towards ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... as a general practice before the world had begun to talk of humanity. They were abolished because war became more scientific. The right to plunder and ravage was not denied. But plunder was found to demoralise your troops and unfit them for fighting, and ravaging proved to be a less powerful means of coercing your enemy than exploiting the occupied country by means of regular requisitions for the supply of your own army and the increase of its ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... therefore be numbered among the dead, as far as human intercourse is concerned. This alone could hinder the execution of his appointment, for in other things he has excellent qualifications for the dignity. Since his condition renders him unfit for service, and since the dean must necessarily take upon himself the management and headship of the cabildo, much consideration should be given to this appointment—especially as another appointment (as archdean) came for Canon Thomas de Guimarano, an unlettered man, to whom some years ago they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... who came here in July, 1868. There were twenty-two of us in all, peres et freres, and two or three weeks afterwards seventeen were down with fever. You can have no idea of what it was here five-and-twenty years ago. The country was unfit for human beings. The people went shivering about in the heat of summer wrapped up as they would be in the depth of winter. It was ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

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

... But he could not hold his own against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. Perhaps he could not have done better than thus ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... be Sold, with Garage—or can be let alone; detached (owing to subsidence of soil); standing on its own ground (except for a small portion which is lying in neighbour's yard). There are three stories: (1) that it is haunted, (2) that it is unfit for human habitation, (3) that it is mortgaged up to the hilt. The title ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various

... demanded in an authoritative tone, where Proctor was; but casting his eye upon him at a small distance, sternly enquired why he had not put a stop to the inhuman massacre. 'Sir,' said Proctor, 'your Indians cannot be commanded.' 'Begone' retorted Tecumseh, with the greatest disdain, 'you are unfit to command; go ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... was unwise in the extreme, and therefore I opposed his confirmation. There were fair offers of compromise on men who were free from objections, all of which were refused by Butler. The President declined to withdraw the nomination unless it could be made to appear that Simmons was an unfit man. This could not be done. I was upon the Committee on Commerce to which the nomination was referred, and upon my motion the report was adverse to the nomination. Butler came to my room and denounced my action, ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... with a glass front. In this globe the diver places his head, which he can move about at his ease. To the globe are attached two pipes; one used for carrying off the air ejected from the lungs, and which is unfit for respiration, and the other in communication with a pump worked on the raft, and bringing in the fresh air. When the diver is at work the raft remains immovable above him; when the diver moves about on the bottom of the river the raft follows ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... who forestalled the inquiry by endeavouring to crush the '500 scoundrels' he complained of—a scoundrel in that gentleman's estimation seems to be one who thinks that some 12 pounds per head per annum is rather too heavy a tax for an Englishman to pay, especially if used in supporting men so unfit for office as he has proved himself to be. This gentleman was the arch-rioter of the 30th November; in this we are confirmed (if confirmation of well-known facts were needed) by the verdict of acquittal of the so called 'Ballaarat Rioters,' ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... extreme old age. I have scarce known any man of his condition, his equal in all bodily exercises, as I have seldom met with any who have not excelled me, except in running, at which I was pretty good. In music or singing, for which I have a very unfit voice, or to play on any sort of instrument, they could never teach me anything. In dancing, tennis, or wrestling, I could never arrive to more than an ordinary pitch; in swimming, fencing, vaulting, and leaping, to none at all. My hands are so clumsy that I cannot even write so as to read ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... elected stayed on till he died or resigned. By 1914, of all parties in the House we had by far the largest proportion of men over military age. I question whether three out of the seventy could have passed the standard then exacted—for two or three of the younger men were medically unfit. In these circumstances the War Office would have been well advised to waive a regulation or two to facilitate matters; but the rigour of the rules was maintained. One of my colleagues, a man in the early forties, offered to join as a private; he was refused. In my own case a similar refusal ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... in this order animated the whole Catholic world. The Court of Rome itself was purified. During the generation which preceded the Reformation, that court had been a scandal to the Christian name. Its annals are black with treason, murder, and incest. Even its more respectable members were utterly unfit to be ministers of religion. They were men like Leo the Tenth; men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan age, had acquired its atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded those Christian mysteries, of which they were stewards, just as the Augur Cicero and the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the boats were manned, and, at a word from Jack, they put away from the ship. Each boat was crowded, for some had been damaged in the battle with the German cruiser and made unfit ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... genuine picture of an intellectual profligate, or of that lovely gaiety of the female spirit which we have all of us seen, but which it is scarcely possible to fix and to copy, we almost admire the more the astonishing talent, that, having undertaken a task for which it was so eminently unfit, yet has been able to substitute for the substance so amazing a mockery, and has treated with so much copiousness and power what it was unfit ever to ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... functionaries in the Province, who, although a clever man, was sorely addicted to fits of intemperence, was now, while the country was convulsed with gloomy forebodings, regarding Fenianism, again passing through one of his prolonged and fearful drinking bouts, and totally unfit to pay even the slightest attention to the momentous business of his office. Already, it was averred, numerous dispatches, of the most vital moment, were lying unopened upon his table, where they were scattered, wet and stained with wine and debauch, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... lid down, which also should show no indisposition to do so; if on lifting the lid any of the white chalk is seen to have changed places and got on to the lining of the lid, put aside at once and for ever the condemned case as being an unfit receptacle for your cherished Cremona. Further, if the fit is at all tight, do not use pressure but get another case, your violin would be a very bad one indeed for your sympathies to fall in with a horrible suggestion once made by the maker of a too ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick

... necessary and ordinary operations of the government. No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? ...
— The Federalist Papers

... shocked and frightened, not so much of my adversary as at myself. The feeling was mingled with shame, for I began to think that I must be a terrible coward, and I found myself wondering what my uncle would say if he knew how unfit I was to be ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... reply, as she is dramatically bound, over-exalts her "sage and serious doctrine of Virginity" as Comus had overstated the case against it; but what she praises is Temperance, not Abstinence. Her virginity is that of a free maiden, not that of a vowed nun, and there is nothing in it to unfit her to play the part which, when Eve plays it, gives Milton occasion for his well-known apostrophe to true love. Nor is there any inconsistency between his denunciation of "wanton masks" in that passage, and his being the author of Comus. His own mask was as different as ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... was that he was not of the sort to let himself be vexed. Each had disappointed him seriously; Fannie by setting up domestic love and felicity as a purpose instead of an appliance, squandering her care and strength in a short-sighted devotion to his physical needs, and showing herself unfit to co-operate with him in the things for which he thought it no great matter to risk his life; and John by failing so utterly to discern the true situation in Suez that the only thing to do with him was to let him alone until time and hard luck might season him to better ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... feasting, and dancing, than the care of preparing for war, he gave orders to have all their places of public entertainment shut up, and that they should be restrained in such amusements as rendered soldiers unfit for battle. 16. In the mean time the Romans did all which prudence could suggest, to oppose so formidable an enemy; and the consul Laevi'nus was sent with a numerous force to interrupt his progress. 17. Pyr'rhus, though his whole army was not yet arrived, drew ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... returned some weeks later in shame and disgrace, and the state of the men was even more miserable than when they started, for now the plague was raging amongst them. 'There was neither "meat nor drink available"; such provisions as had been doled out were often unfit for food, and "men die after eating them."' Pennington, the Vice-Admiral at Plymouth, sent petition after petition to the authorities for necessary supplies. 'Send the money, or it will break my heart, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

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

... a caustic voice, "but that is hardly the point. He has taken to ways of relieving his sufferings which make him quite unfit for decent society——" ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

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

... had never brought her to such a pass as this. Indeed, Marie had not hitherto been taught to look at the matter in this light. No one had heretofore twitted her with eating the bread of charity. It had not occurred to her that on this account she was unfit to be Adolphe's wife. There, in that valley, they were all so nearly equal, that no idea of her own inferiority had ever pressed itself upon her ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope

... have been worse if the men hadn't behaved so well, and turned themselves into amateur firemen. No thanks to the War Office that there aren't twenty-two deaths, instead of two. Why, only six months ago, I warned 'em that the place was "unfit for human habitation," and a regular death-trap in case of fire, with only one narrow wooden staircase to the whole block. I wrote that, "if a fire occurred at night, there must be many deaths." Yet nothing has ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various

... and women of to-day must have proofs, or what they are willing to accept as proofs, before they will credit anything that purports to be of a spiritual tendency;—something startling—some miracle of a stupendous nature, such as according to prophecy they are all unfit to receive. Few will admit the subtle influence and incontestable, though mysterious, authority exercised upon their lives by higher intelligences than their own—intelligences unseen, unknown, but felt. Yes! felt by the most careless, the most cynical; in the uncomfortable ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... "the chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render hint unfit to go there; of course there are exceptions; but do you know that I could not go into politics if I were a lawyer, without losing standing somewhat in my profession, and without raising at least a suspicion of my intentions and unselfishness? Why, it is telegraphed all over the country ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... of many communities in the Black Belt, is startling. One negro witness who has been in direct association for many years with ministers in this part of the South, says, "three-fourths of those who are now acting as preachers in all this region, are absolutely unfit to preach the gospel. It is rare that one can find in the country districts where the masses of the people dwell, a minister who is both intelligent ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various

... right to forego the opportunity of making a very profitable sale; so, instead of the sublimate, he made up the same quantity of alum for the Cacique and received the price he demanded. Next morning all the water in Lima was unfit for use. On examination it was found that the enclosure of the Atarrea was broken down, and the source saturated with alum. ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... Bartlett has been enabled to gather, for it shows that our language is alive. It is only from the roots that a language can be refreshed; a dialect that is taught grows more and more pedantic, and becomes at last as unfit a vehicle for living thought as monkish Latin. This is the danger which our literature has to guard against from the universal Schoolmaster, who wars upon home-bred phrases, and enslaves the mind and memory of his victims, as far as may be, to the best models of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... came crouching at his feet and wept for lack of it. "Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your great head unfit!" ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... possible to burlesque that business extravagantly. You know I was going to send you that detective play, so that you could re-write it. Well I didn't do it because I couldn't find a single idea in it that could be useful to you. It was dreadfully witless and flat. I knew it would sadden you and unfit you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... they portray in their ministry. For this reason it has been decreed that those who shed blood, even without sin, become irregular. Now no man who has a certain duty to perform, can lawfully do that which renders him unfit for that duty. Wherefore it is altogether unlawful for clerics to fight, because war is directed to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

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

... theatre had to take care that everybody took his seat in the row marked on his ticket. Most of the spectators were men. In older times women were allowed only to attend at tragedies, the coarse jokes of the comedy being deemed unfit for the ears of Athenian ladies. Only hetairai made an exception to this rule. It is almost certain that the seats of men and women were separate. Boys were allowed to witness both tragedies and comedies. Whether slaves were admitted amongst the spectators seems doubtful. As pedagogues were not ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... for governors; yet neither lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one into popularity, the other into tyranny, falling both into the same fault out of different passions. For a ruler's first end is to maintain his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the general province of legislation, either because it might appear undignified in its circumstances, or too narrow in its range of operation for a public anxiety, or because considerations of delicacy and prudence might render it unfit for a public scrutiny. Take one case, drawn from actual experience, as an illustration: A Roman nobleman, under one of the early emperors, had thought fit, by way of increasing his income, to retire into rural lodgings, or into some ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... at foreign courts. They do the business accordingly, that is, very ill: they never get into the secrets of these courts, for want of insinuation and address: they do not guess at their views, for want of knowing their interests: and, at last, finding themselves very unfit for, soon grow weary of their commissions, and are impatient to return home, where they are but too justly laid aside and neglected. Every moment's conversation may, if you please, be of use to you; in this view, every public event, which is the common topic of conversation, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... met Robson, the confidential agent. I learnt from him that Mr. Ponsonby had hardly waited for her mother's death to marry a Limenian, a person whom everything pointed out as unfit to associate with his daughter. Even Robson, cautious as he was, said he could not undertake to recommend Miss ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... compartment of six two were killed within a month and one wounded; the other three survived until the first of July, when one was killed, one was taken a prisoner of war, and I was wounded and rendered unfit for further service. When at last our train started, amid rousing cheers for the ladies and a fluttering of white handkerchiefs from the little group on the station platform, we seemed to leave the ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams

... of a character which seemed more accustomed to receive honours voluntarily paid than to enforce them when they were refused. The good nature of the expression was so great as to approach to defenceless simplicity or weakness of character, unfit, it might be inferred, to repel intrusion or subdue resistance. Amongst the grey locks of this personage was placed a small circlet or coronet of gold, upon a blue fillet. His beads, which were large and conspicuous, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... reason, not for shutting our eyes to the slowness of the Suvla Generals, but for spurring them on to do likewise. There is nothing open to them now—not without efforts for which they are, for the time being, unfit—but Kavak Tepe and the Aja Liman Anafarta ridge. So, on arrival at 6 p.m., wrote out the following message from ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... eighteen years of age, the bride as young; but it was considered desirable that the heir-apparent should marry, and Queen Louise's place had remained vacant while her daughter, Princess Charlotte, was still unfit to preside over the Court in her ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... introduces him at the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding. His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself, he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's conduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her conduct and ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... recruits raised principally from the refuse of the streets of London and Dublin, was embarked for the regiment by orders from the inspector-general at Chatham. These men were of the most depraved character, and of such dissolute habits, that one-half of them were unfit for service; fifteen died in the passage, and seventy-five were sent to the hospital from the transport as soon as they disembarked. The infusion of such immoral ingredients must necessarily have a deleterious ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... advantage of their great privileges to describe. For example, there were times during the first thirty years of the century when the open and general lewdness of the officials on some of the principal settlements, in their relations with the female convicts, rendered them totally unfit ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... Miss Toller, must be drawn somewhere. Helen will have the gratuity usual at this season—she is a well-regulated person and will see the impropriety of intrusion into a sphere for which she is unfit.' ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... the hospital people had discovered it and sent her away to nurse her friend and try to get well. They had been kind and talked about when she should return to them, but she knew in her heart they felt her unfit and did not want ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... it appears to me you cannot do it. You are the most unfit man possible. Whosever duty it may be, it does not seem to me to be yours. You already have more on your shoulders than you can carry; you are hardly able to keep your ground now, with all the odium of this new theology upon you. Such an effort would break ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... ship unrigged, and all her stores, guns, &c., taken out, in readiness for her being laid up in ordinary, or going into dock, &c. &c. To dismantle a gun is to render it unfit for service. The same applies ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... to read," rejoined the judge, taking up the pamphlet he had laid down upon the lad's entrance, "but it says in substance, as quoted by this author, that negroes are beings 'of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; in fact, so inferior that they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, and that the negro may justly and ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... the pleasure he felt in observing the excellences in their characters which adversity developed.—It has by some persons been thought, that women who have been suffered to acquire literary tastes, whose understandings have been cultivated and refined, are apt to disdain or to become unfit for the useful minutiae of domestic duties. In the education of her daughters Mrs. Percy had guarded against this danger, and she now experienced the happy effects of her prudence. At first they had felt it somewhat irksome, in their change of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... to examine, whether the papers on the table show that the best means were employed for attaining the given object? If the object was unfit, there is an end of any discussion as to the negotiations;—they must necessarily be wrong from the beginning to the end; it is only in reference to their fitness for the end proposed, that the papers themselves can be matter ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

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

... Tom-all-Alone's, heavily, heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking—as that lamp, too, winks in Tom-all-Alone's—at many horrible things. But they are blotted out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, and ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... guidance. It was out of commission more than half the time, and could never be relied upon to furnish a holiday. Both Miss Bauers and Miss Ahearn had twelve-cylinder opportunities that should have rendered them forever unfit for travel in ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... or depression. Once committed to the undertaking, he spends anxious days and sleepless nights in mental agony, much as a criminal is said to do just prior to his execution. When at last he attempts his "maiden effort," he is almost wholly unfit for his task because of the needless waste of thought and energy ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... the lands in the Michigan Territory designated by law toward satisfying land bounties promised the soldiers of the late army are so covered with swamps and lakes, or otherwise unfit for cultivation, that a very inconsiderable proportion can be applied to the intended grants. I recommend, therefore, that other lands be designated by Congress for the purpose of supplying ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... more erect as he spoke. The position, it must be acknowledged, was difficult. He could see that this strange man, this John Gordon, looked upon him, William Whittlestaff, to be altogether an unfit person to take Mary Lawrie for his wife. By the tone in which he asked the question, and by the look of surprise which he put on when he received the answer, Gordon showed plainly that he had not expected such a reply. "What! an old man like you to become the husband ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... Through most of India the unchecked oppression of usurers, in whose toils many millions of landholders are so bound as to lack means or motive for the proper cultivation of the soil. (3) A system of law and police totally unfit for small cultivators—witness the plague of litigation, appeals as 250 to 1 in England, habitual perjury, manufactured crime, and blackmailing by corrupt native police, all destructive of rural ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... and holy lives. In their presence he again forbade his dear brethren indiscreet mortifications, which are injurious to the body; representing to them that they either hasten death, or throw the body into such a state of languor and weakness, as makes it unfit for spiritual exercises, or an impediment to the practice of good works. Oh, fortunate and happy times, when it was necessary to ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... my connection with your mother, it has been with a view to prove to you how deeply I have been injured; but I have now arrived at a part of my history, when to linger on the past would goad me into madness, and render me unfit for the purpose to which I have devoted myself. Brief must be the probing of wounds, that nearly five lustres have been insufficient to heal; brief the tale that reveals the infamy of those who have given you birth, and the utter blighting of the fairest hopes of one whose only fault was that of ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... tobacco-user has been, by the dirty floor, and street, and the air made unfit to breathe, because of the smoke and strong, bad smell of old tobacco from his pipe and cigar and from his ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews

... To fill the languid pause with finer joy; Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, Catch every nerve, and vibrate 'through the frame. 220 Their level life is but a smould'ring fire, Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire; Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer On some high festival of once a year, In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, 225 Till, buried in debauch, ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... operate, to exclude the laity from the secondary schools,—first, these schools were so poverty-stricken that they could not afford to pay lay teachers at such a rate as would attract them to the teaching profession, and, next, the Catholic laity as a body were uneducated, and, therefore, unfit to teach in the schools.'—Maynooth and the ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... power and greatness of a state arises from the number of its people; uninhabited dominions are an empty show, and serve only to encumber the nation to which they belong; they are a kind of pompous ornaments, which must be thrown away in time of danger, and equally unfit for resistance ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... serviceable art. Upon the whole the literary calling gained much from the discreditable action of Lincoln's Inn; for the speech in which Sheridan covered with derision this attempt to brand parliamentary reporters as unfit to associate with members of the bar, and the address in which Mr. Stephen, with manly reference to his own early experiences, warmly censured the conduct of the society of which he was himself a member, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... of the brass instruments let loose, people only see him open his mouth, and Monsieur Mielvaque dances with delight. Monsieur Mielvaque, declared unfit for service, has been called up again. More miserable than ever, worn and pared and patched up, more and more parched and shriveled by hopelessly long labor—he blots out the shiny places on his overcoat ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... we did not expect him to reach the Glacier Tongue, and that he has now done more than 100 miles from Cape Evans, one really does not know what to expect of these creatures. Certainly Titus thinks, as he has always said, that they are the most unsuitable scrap-heap crowd of unfit creatures that ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... misfortune belongs misconduct. Those causes which produce poverty like intemperance, idleness, and ignorance, are productive of degeneracy, also. They render the individual unfit to meet the responsibilities of life, and tend not only to incompetence but also to sensuality and even crime. Added to the various physical causes are such psychical influences as contact with degraded minds or with base literature or art, loss of religious ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... was treating them like so many kings; and, with a discreet abundance of grog, beer, and tobacco, there was perhaps little more to be accomplished in behalf of men whose whole previous lives have tended to unfit them for old age. Their chief discomfort is probably for lack of something to do or think about. But, judging by the few whom I saw, a listless habit seems to have crept over them, a dim dreaminess of mood, in which they sit between asleep and awake, and find the long day wearing towards bedtime ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... window over my head. Then came a shout of—"Uncle Harry!" in a voice I recognized as that of Budge. I made no reply: there are moments when the soul is full of utterances unfit to be heard by childish ears. "Uncle Har-RAY!" repeated Budge. Then I heard a window-blind open, ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

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

... onward," Dorothy continued, courteously ignoring her uncle's not too courteous interpolation, and airily relegating into oblivion the recent past, "she expects to manifest her angelic qualities to an extent that will make her appear unfit for earth. Very possibly she may even grow a pair of wings and fly quite away from you, sir—right up among the clouds, where the other angels are! And how would you like that, ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... that the Jews who left Egypt were unfit for the promised land. If so, they were unfit to be the chosen people of God. Why were they not allowed to remain in Egypt until they grew better, or why was not some other nation ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... then came another so meek, That his name really ought to 've been Moses; We almost considered him settled, When lo! the secret discloses, He'd attacks of nervous disease, That unfit him for every-day duty; His sermons, oh, never can please, They lack both in force ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... species by means of natural forces and phenomena only. Natural selection acts as a sieve; it does not single out the best variations, but it simply destroys the larger number of those which are, from some cause or another, unfit for their present environment. In this way it keeps the strains up to the required standard, and, in special ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... months, and in spite of the infinite variety of new impressions which had packed themselves into his mind, he knew no more, for his practical purposes, than the day he graduated. He had made no step towards a profession. He was as ignorant as a schoolboy of society. He was unfit for any career in Europe, and unfitted for any career in America, and he had not natural intelligence enough to see what a mess he had thus far made of ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... whence a telephone message would promptly summon the child. But Bonny Angel? Station house matrons were kind enough, and their temporary care of her brood had been a relief to overworked Meg-Laundress; but for this beautiful "Guardian," they were all unfit. Only tenderest love should ever come near so angelic a little creature and of such love ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond

... Austria-Hungary which faced the Russians was composed of men from a country where universal military service prevailed. In theory only the physically unfit were exempt from service, and the liability extended from the beginning of the nineteenth year to the close of the forty-second. Actual service in the ranks and with the reserve was twelve years. After the men had served ten years with the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... ambassadors who were ordered to bear these conditions home reported them in an assembly, and Gisgo had stood forth to dissuade them from the terms, and was being listened to by the multitude, who were at once indisposed for peace and unfit for war, Hannibal, indignant that such language should be held and listened to at such a juncture, laid hold of Gisgo with his own hand and dragged him from his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... found, and stony soils, are unfit for coffee. But I do not mean by "stony soils" land on which many stones are lying, for on that very account it may be most suitable; but I mean land which shows a pebbly stratum just below the surface, or such as is of a porous, stony nature. In the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... repeated his father, now well wrought up to a passion. "What right has he to send such a piece of foolishness to my Polly Pepper? I can give her all the watches she needs. And this trumpery," pointing to the jewelled gift still lying in Jasper's hand, "is utterly unfit for a schoolgirl. ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

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

... the non-clinging of sin we have to understand its obstructing the origination of the power, on the part of sin, to cause that disastrous disposition on the part of man which consists in unfitness for religious works; for sins committed tend to render man unfit for religious works and inclined to commit further sinful actions of the same kind. By knowledge effecting the destruction of sin, on the other hand, we understand its destroying that power of sin after it has once originated. That power consists, fundamentally, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... rather Providence, took the reins from the weak, passionate hands that were so unfit to hold them, and threw him back, helpless and baffled, on his bed of pain; there to learn, week by week, through weary sickness and still more weary convalescence, the lesson that only suffering could teach him—that it were well to forgive others their sins, even ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... utterly unworthy of us; some of these places, in fact, are abominably demoralizing and degrading. We clothe the poor in a dress of shame, and then wonder at their want of self-respect! Many of our unions are utterly unfit for the respectable poor and (we seem to forget that there is such a class)—I was nearly saying, are places of seething vice; no wonder, then, even starving people, who have a spark of true pride left in them, prefer to die rather than go there. Poverty and distress ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... late in the evening when Donald and Neal, with weary horses and wearier limbs, came close to Antrim. Neal was unused to riding long distances, and Donald complained that a voyage across the Atlantic left a man unfit for land travelling. They accosted a stranger on the road and asked his guidance to the best inn. The man answered them in a civil way. He spoke with a northern accent, but his voice was singularly sweet and gentle, and his words were those ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... doubtful of the future, in spite of her big, brave talk to Dr. Slavens in the days before the drawing. Now that she had the land, and a better piece of it than she had hoped for, considering her high number, she felt weakly unfit to take it in hand and break it to the condition of docility in which it would tolerate ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... unnecessary to mention, that this is become a pet-vice among us; and though age renders us unfit for other vices, yet this, where it takes hold, never leaves us but with ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... brought with me; and other such unscriptural statements were made by this brother. Thus we spent again about two hours and a half in intercourse, whilst this teaching elder and one of the other elders considered me unfit to take the Lord's supper with them on the coming Lord's day, but the two other elders and several other brethren who were present were quite ready to break bread with me, and with any who love our Lord Jesus. Brother—now said, there must be a separation. ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... hunted down For treasons to my soul unfit; I've been pursued through many a town For crimes that petty ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... what wandering thoughts I may have had of attempting the life of an ancient ewe, of a superannuated hen, and such "small deer," are locked up in the secrets of my own breast; but for the higher departments of the art, I confess myself to be utterly unfit. My ambition does not rise so high. No, gentlemen, in ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." On the other hand, just as Adam transmitted to his posterity a carnal nature, alien to God and unfit for righteousness, so the new Adam imparts to the race of which He is the Head a spiritual nature, akin to God and ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... to the whole people. He, who, holding either seat, would confine his investigations to the mere interests of his immediate constituents, would be derelict to his plain duty; and he who would legislate in hostility to any section would be morally unfit for the station, and surely an unsafe depositary, if not a treacherous guardian, of the inheritance with which we are blessed. No one more than myself recognizes the binding force of the allegiance which the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... she cried, and could not stay. Back he retired, and thus the heavens he told; "All things that are, are subject unto me, Both towns, and men, and what the world doth hold; But her fair Licia still immortal be." The heavens did grant; a goddess she was made, Immortal, fair, unfit to suffer change. So now she lives, and never more shall fade; In earth a goddess, what can be more strange? Then will I hope, a goddess and so near, She cannot choose my ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... applause of flatterers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church of the Galilaeans. In all the cities ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... was altogether right or not, is not the question here; the novelist's business is to represent the real thoughts of mankind, when they are not absolutely unfit to be told; and certainly Tom spoke the doubts of thousands ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... babies, or as conscious spirit-fearers: and seems much inclined to accuse the world at large of dreading, lest by the actual presence of the other world their Christianity should imbibe a spiritual element which would unfit it for ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... Ahmed on a wall-eyed scrub that looked unfit to walk, but proved well able to gallop under his light weight. One of Anazeh's men took my bag, with a nod to reassure me, and without a word we were off full-pelt, Anazeh leading with four stalwarts who looked almost ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

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

... hour were typified to her mind as a great fence, a wall, which divided her eternally from her beloved. Had it not always been so? Was not her life a patchwork of conditions made and affected by these things which she saw—wealth and force—which had found her unfit? She had evidently been born to yield, not seek. This panoply of power had been paraded before her since childhood. What could she do now but stare vaguely after it as it marched triumphantly by? Lester had been of it. Him it respected. ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... heaven should always be somehow repugnant, and unfit as it were for human habitation. Isn't there something ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... doctor solemnly, "your conduct has been irregular; once ill, and your illness announced to your medical adviser, etiquette forbade you to get well but by his prescriptions. Since, then, you have shown yourself unfit to conduct a malady, it becomes my painful duty to forbid you henceforth ever to be ill at all, without my ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

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

... husband was away hauling logs for their first home, and news came that the slave-traders from Missouri had made another raid upon the scattered Abolitionist farmers. The woman had evidently been unfit for such rude transplanting. She dwelt upon the fact that her husband had never understood her feelings. If he had, she wouldn't have minded so much. Marriage was not what girls thought; she had not been happy since she left her father's house, and so forth. The lament was based ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... Sexual Object. Fetichism.*—We are especially impressed by those cases in which for the normal sexual object another is substituted which is related to it but which is totally unfit for the normal sexual aim. According to the scheme of the introduction we should have done better to mention this most interesting group of aberrations of the sexual impulse among the deviations in reference to the sexual object, ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud

... am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition unfit for it, and I want to get out of it. I am standing on a volcano. ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... this thing I found the unfitness of women to handle public affairs, for the tender hearts, which make good wives and mothers and daughters, unfit us for the judicial conduct needed in public matters—and I'm glad they do," she finished, with ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... to us as a nervous complaint, caused by the death of his wife, and by the proceedings which had followed it. He was reported to be quite incapable of exerting himself, and quite unfit to see strangers. We insisted nevertheless (in deference to our instructions) on obtaining admission to his room. He made no reply when we inquired whether he had or had not removed anything from the sleeping-room next to his late wife's, which he usually ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... influence on the memory will be proportionate to the effect on the attention, the psychologist cannot fully agree. The advertisement may attract the attention of the reader strongly and yet by its whole structure may be unfit to force on the memory its characteristic content, especially the name of the firm and of the article. The pure memory-value is especially important, as according to a well-known psychological law ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg

... very genial man," he answered; "but when you let me have a key of your rooms I could not very well refuse you one of mine, although I picked your pocket of it in the end. I will only say that when I had no wish to see you, Bunny, I must have been quite unfit for human society, and it was the act of a friend to deny you mine. I don't think it happened more than once or twice. You can afford to forgive a fellow after ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... repairs, which detained them a considerable time. Indeed, it was as much as they could do to patch her up at all; for, her timbers were so rotten and the vessel had been strained so much from overloading that she was really unfit to be sent to sea. However, as Fritz already knew, the Gustav Barentz managed to clear out of the Channel, reaching the latitude of the Cape de Verde Islands all right, and it was shortly after passing Teneriffe ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... allow; and all the time not losing a cell, not suffering a single one of their numerous structures to be sacrificed, to be ridiculous, uncertain, or barbarous, or any section thereof to become unfit for use. But I fear that I have already wandered into many details that will have but slender interest for the reader, whose eyes perhaps may never have followed a flight of bees; or who may have regarded them only with the ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... something done that had not been done when Peter asked, 'Why cannot I follow Thee now?' One reason why he could not was, as I said, because he did not know yet what 'following' meant, and because he was yet unfit for this assimilation of his character and of his conduct to the likeness of his Lord. And another reason was because the Cross still lay before the Lord, and until that death of infinite love and utter self-sacrifice for others had been accomplished, the pattern was not yet complete, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... eat their Hearts, and drink their Blood, Were they not Poison, and unfit for Dogs. Here, you Blood-hunter, have you lost your Feeling? You Tygress Bitch! You Breeder up of Serpents! [Slapping HONNYMAN in the face, and ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... of Bob Haskell's career are these. He escaped from Canada after committing burglary and a brutal murder. He tried at one American recruiting station after another to find safety in military service, and was rejected as unfit wherever he applied. ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... and Stevens instantly threw his arm around the girl, twisting himself between her and the threatened wall, ready for any emergency. But nothing more happened; the door remained closed, the cell stayed bottle-tight, and time wore slowly on. All too soon the unmistakable symptoms of breathing an unfit atmosphere made themselves apparent and Stevens, after testing each of the doors, drew the girl into a larger room, where they breathed deeply of the fresh, ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... vegetables operated disastrously upon the garrison. Even before the arrival of the relieving fleet, scurvy had shown itself; and its ravages continued, and extended, as months went on. The hospitals became crowded with sufferers—a third of the force being unfit for any duty—while there were few but were more or less ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... written to him several times, I heard seldom, and always briefly. His first notes were dated from Berlin, and those succeeding them from Vienna. He seemed restless, bitter, dissatisfied with himself, and with the world. Naturally unfit for a lounging, idle life, his active nature, now that it had to bear up against the irritation of hope deferred, chafed and ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... dollars' subscription to the work and I hope you will give as much You have not mentioned Mr. Hayes for several letters. I fear you are prejudiced against him. Seek to know and weigh his character before you judge him as unfit for your love. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... administration, when the difficult questions to be settled needed the best statesmanship of the country, and when the President and Congress should have cooperated wisely and sympathetically, did incalculable harm. Johnson, by habits, manners, mind, and character, was unfit for the presidential office, and whatever may have been the merit of his policy, a policy devised by angels could never have been carried on by such an advocate. The American people love order and decency; they have a high regard for the presidential office, and they desire to see its occupant conduct ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... acquire any thing?" a "quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food![C] their only clothing for one half the year, "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons!"[D]two hours and a half only, for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four![E]—their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence, with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field.[F] Add to this, the ignorance, and degradation;[G] the daily sunderings of kindred, the revelries of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... few of us who have much time for retrospect, and there is a very deep sense in which it is wise to 'forget the things that are behind,' for the remembrance of them may burden us with a miserable entail of failure; may weaken us by vain regrets, may unfit us for energetic action in the living and available present. But oblivion is foolish, if it is continual, and a remembered past has treasures in it which we can little ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... the Greek soldiers were exercised to ride, to draw the bow, and to the daily practice of ambuscades and evolutions. Alexius had been taught by experience, that the formidable cavalry of the Franks on foot was unfit for action, and almost incapable of motion; [80] his archers were directed to aim their arrows at the horse rather than the man; and a variety of spikes and snares were scattered over the ground on which he might expect ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... and wrong. Our theory of blame is utterly sophisticated and untrue to man's experience. We are as much ashamed of a pimpled face that came to us by natural descent as by one that we have earned by our excesses, and rightly so; since the two cases, in so much as they unfit us for the easier sort of pleasing and put an obstacle in the path of love, are exactly equal in their consequence. We look aside from the true question. We cannot blame others at all; we can only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... time of peace); and the military organisation is everywhere of the same general description, especially as regards length of service, character of the drill, and organisation in corps and regiments. Every German, unless physically unfit, is subject to military duty and cannot shift the burden on a substitute. He must serve for seven years in the standing army: that is, three years in the field army and four in the reserve; thereafter he takes his place ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... should think of leaving his own home, and above all for another country, where public representation is unavoidable. Dalberg told me that several of the Ministers are going out—Guizot, Marshal Gerard, and Baron Louis, the two latter accables with the travail, and the first unused to and unfit for official ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... some or many of those worlds; for the affairs of this world may be largely involved in theirs. Therefore, if God would give us such a revelation now, we can easily see that it is quite beyond us; the subject would be too vast for us now and here; we would be utterly bewildered, and rendered unfit for the ordinary duties of life. How much wiser and kinder it is to give us but a limited revelation, leaving unrevealed matters ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... often thought of the little slender figure, so strangely helmeted, kneeling in the summer sunlight, with Heaven knows what thoughts of what life was to be; it seems to me a sorrowful enough symbol of boyhood—so eager to share in the fray, so unfit ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... schools or reformatories for periods up to seven years. In 1873 the Master of any Industrial School established under the Act became in loco parentis to children of parents who, because of their criminal and dissolute habits, were unfit to have the guardianship ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.



Words linked to "Unfit" :   game, bad, impaired, qualify, unfitness, lame, gammy, flabby, mutilated, disqualify, spavined, crippled, disabled, bowed, indispose, broken-backed, halting, unsound, humpbacked, change, bowlegged, crookbacked, afflicted, modify, gimpy, ill, bandy-legged, handicapped, halt, gibbous, sick, apraxic, lordotic, bowleg, swayback, knock-kneed, crookback, unsuitable



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