To waste and destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Historian, Political Leader, Explorer
It is my humble prayer that I may be of some use in my day and generation.
—Hosea Ballou (1771–1852) American Theologian
If you are seeking health, wealth, usefulness, skill in any direction, there is nothing and no one who can hinder your attainment of the coveted boon, if you are willing to work and wait
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American Poet, Journalist
Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Take what you can use and let the rest go by.
—Ken Kesey (1935–2001) American Counterculture Novelist
A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.
—Richard Nixon (1913–94) American Head of State, Lawyer
It is not paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications.
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher
The useful and the beautiful are never separated.
—Periander (c.625–585 BCE) Tyrant of Corinth
The vulgar crowd values friends according to their usefulness
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness.
—William Graham Sumner (1840–1910) American Polymath, Historian, Sociologist, Anthropologist
We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.
—Marie Curie (1867–1934) Polish-born French Physicist, Chemist
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have – for their usefulness
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
In the early West, law and politics were parallel roads to usefulness as well as distinction
—John George Nicolay (1832–1901) German-Born American Author, Diplomat
All the good things of this world are no further good than as they are of use; and whatever we may heap up to give to others, we enjoy only as much as we can make useful to ourselves and others, and no more.
—Daniel Defoe (1659–1731) English Writer, Journalist, Pamphleteer
A useless life is only an early death.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness
—Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954) American Horticulturist, Botanist
It is, indeed an incredible fact that what the human mind, at its deepest and most profound, perceives as beautiful finds its realization in external nature…. What is intelligible is also beautiful.
—Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–95) Indian-American Astrophysicist
When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
—Jacob Riis (1849–1914) Danish-American Reformer, Journalist, Photographer
Life is work, and everything you do is so much more experience. Sometimes you work for wages, sometimes not, but what does anybody make but a living? And whatever you have you must either use or lose.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
A person’s worth is quite independent of their usefulness to society
—Kjell Magne Bondevik (b.1947) Norwegian Politician, Pastor
Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
It is inevitable that those to whom is vouchsafed a long life of usefulness should outlive the friends of their youth
—Cleveland Abbe (1838–1916) American Meteorologist
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Historian, Political Leader, Explorer
What praise is implied in the simple epithet useful! What reproach in the contrary.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.
—Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) British Gothic Novelist
The search for static security—in the law and elsewhere—is misguided. The fact is security can only be achieved through constant change, adapting old ideas that have outlived their usefulness to current facts.
—William O. Douglas (1898–1980) American Judge
Everyone knows the usefulness of the useful, but no one knows the usefulness of the useless.
—Zhuang Zhou (c.369–c.286 BCE) Chinese Taoist Philosopher
Have I done aught of value to my fellow-men?. Then have I done much for myself
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
When the air balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The doctor answered this question by asking another: “What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a man
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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