Word: vain
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...With stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain," sighed Friedrich Schiller, and Oscar Wilde added his amen: "There is no sin except stupidity." Both writers had cause for complaint: stupidity, their own or that of others, landed them in jail.* In this head-shaking book, Author Paul Tabori notes that man's incurable doltishness has managed to fill the prisons and crowd the executioner's block with the finest intelligences the human race could produce. A partial list: Plato, Socrates, Seneca, Boethius, Cervantes, Sir Walter Raleigh, Daniel Defoe, Voltaire, Beaumarchais, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Verlaine...
MacLennan tells his story from the point of view of an introverted, slightly vain, mildly successful man of public affairs--George Stewart...
...sprints, Bruce Hunter struggled in vain for the win, but came a close second in both races. The varsity was hampered by the absence of captain John Hammond, who was unable to compete...
...study is a weariness of the flesh (12:12), and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow (1:18). And, as St. Paul has said (I. Cor. 9:25), speaking of Olympic athletes, "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things." In stead of engaging in vain railings and obstinate goadings, the Administrators and Calculators should remind themselves of the Proverb, "Boast not to thyself of the morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." (27:1) H.O.J. Brown...
...course a great writer in good form can make much meaning of scanty material. But O'Casey rather plainly hasn't, in this particular instance, and the Charles Playhouse fights a vain battle in trying to elicit dramatic tension from a turgid situation that O'Casey has told in a talky...