It was futile to discuss them, because their necessity and their propriety were equally obvious.
John all the man of the world; to satisfy himself did not suffice; society must approve—the world must admire what he did, or he counted his measures false and futile.
These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good.
It seemed so futile to try to say anything with pen and ink.
"No, I don't; and if I did, you couldn't do it;" with which taunt he was off and Frank after him, having made a futile dive at the impertinent little nose which was turned up at him and his sweetheart.
The attempt would be futile in the space of my command.
Yet the music would swell out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading her that the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury of another.
as she leaned her head against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been the only girl in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literatu
He had no male audience to-day except Mr Moss, who knew nothing, as he said, of the "natur' o' mills," and could only assent to Mr Tulliver's arguments on the a priori ground of family relationship and monetary obligation; but Mr Tulliver did not talk with the futile intention of convincing his audience, he talked to relieve himself; while good Mr Moss made strong efforts to keep his eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually good dinner produced in his hard-worked frame.
Garth offered him, and returning it, which he could easily do by giving up all futile money-spending, since he had a superfluous stock of clothes, and no expense in his board.
Casaubon, and Lydgate, who had some contempt at hand for futile scholarship, felt a little amusement mingling with his pity.
Valancy spent the night huddled on the rug before the fire, her face buried in her hands, when she was not vainly peering from the oriel in a futile effort to see through the furious smoke of wind and snow that had once been blue-dimpled Mistawis.
Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing.
She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been.
Valancy had said nothing, of course; but she wondered to herself if Roaring Abel's periodical sprees were not his futile protest against the poverty and drudgery and monotony of his existence.
The stronger the will, the more futile the task.
So much of what we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten.
We must now imagine a world in which happiness and satisfaction with one's life and work replaces the futile quest to always earn more.
His insight was that where it was futile to try to specify what should happen, it was important to write down who had the right to decide when both parties to a contract could not agree.
Mr Schluetermann said hostel staff made futile calls to various consulates, hoping to identify the tourist.
