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Livelihood   /lˈaɪvlihˌʊd/   Listen
Livelihood

noun
1.
The financial means whereby one lives.  Synonyms: bread and butter, keep, living, support, sustenance.  "He applied to the state for support" , "He could no longer earn his own livelihood"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Livelihood" Quotes from Famous Books



... comparatively simple and easily understood, and therefore easier of solution. So in the rough and ready, often cruel, solutions which nature and humanity have worked out for social problems, it has always been the man whose livelihood, whose education and whose training have been first considered, and whose claims have been first satisfied. For this there are several reasons. Man's possession of material wealth, and his consequent monopoly of social and political power have naturally resulted ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... which is generally classed with the epic songs, however. But while the singing of the epic songs is not a profession, the singing of the religious ballads is of a professional character, and is used as a means of livelihood by the kalyeki perekhozhie, literally, wandering cripples, otherwise known as wandering psalm-singers. These stikhi, or religious ballads, are even more remarkable than the epic songs in some respects, and practically nothing concerning them is ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... of repair to keep from decay, the ownership of it being divided between Cousin Fanny and other members of the family. Cousin Fanny had no means whatever, so that it soon was in a bad condition. The rest of the family, as they grew up, went off, compelled by necessity to seek some means of livelihood, and would have taken Cousin Fanny too if she would have gone; but she would not go. They did all they could for her, but she preferred to hang around the old place, and to do what she could with her ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... solemnity, first taught me to think; and the integrity and single-mindedness of whose children showed how, though fostered in the flinty lap of poverty, happiness and heroic contentment were no fable. The peasants, whom we sometimes met in the interior of the country, where their livelihood must be earned with the hardest labour, and whose necessity during the long and dismal months of winter must not be much inferior to absolute want, ever seemed cheerful and ready, not only to share their ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... Asklepius as god, a physician, a maker of medicines, a compounder of plasters for his livelihood (for he is a needy wight), and in the end, they say that he was struck by Zeus with a thunder-bolt, because of Tyndareus, son of Lakedaemon, and thus perished. Now if Asklepius, though a god, when struck by ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... retired to a distant town, and lived there in very great distress. The mayor endeavored to obtain a livelihood as a scrivener, or clerk; his wife worked at dressmaking and millinery, and Caroline, who soon became skillful in such matters, ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... he was invariably known, prided himself on being something of a philosopher. And in the name of philosophy he chose to be quixotic. That one who hated the dissimulations and shams of our class aristocracy so cordially should have earned his livelihood—and a good one, too—as publisher of the Social Era, a sprightly weekly chronicle of happenings in fashionable society, would have appeared anomalous in any but a man gifted in the Greek sophistries ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... the affection of the object beloved. For what other purpose indeed are our youth instructed in all the arts of rendering themselves agreeable? If it was not with a view to this love, I question whether any of those trades which deal in setting off and adorning the human person would procure a livelihood. Nay, those great polishers of our manners, who are by some thought to teach what principally distinguishes us from the brute creation, even dancing-masters themselves, might possibly find no place in society. In short, all the graces which young ladies and young ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... season, and Blanche's 'experience,' being of early autumn, was at fault; but Flora sent for all that could embellish her conservatories, and by one of the charities by which she loved to kill two birds with one stone, imported a young lady who gained her livelihood by singing at private concerts, and with her for a star, supported by the Minster and Cathedral choirs, hoped to get up sufficient music to occupy people till it should be late enough to dance. She still had some diplomacy to exercise, for Mrs. Ledwich suggested asking ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... it. Well, said Merlin, I know a lord of yours in this land, that is a passing true man and a faithful, and he shall have the nourishing of your child, and his name is Sir Ector, and he is a lord of fair livelihood in many parts in England and Wales; and this lord, Sir Ector, let him be sent for, for to come and speak with you, and desire him yourself, as he loveth you, that he will put his own child to nourishing to another woman, and that his wife nourish yours. And when the child is born let it ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... one. No doubt, many of his fellow-authors had reason to envy him his assured income. His work was hard and not always pleasant, but he knew, with all his half-pretended grumbling, that it would not be wise to rely on his pen for a livelihood. He once remonstrated with the poetical Quaker, Bernard Barton, who proposed to give up a bank-clerkship, in this wise: "Trust not the public; I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me down on the ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... the practice of engrossing and enclosing holdings was increasing, as sheep-raising became more profitable than farming. The tenants thus dispossessed either swelled the ranks of the vagabonds who infested the highways or sought their livelihood at sea or in London, which provided the two best openings for adventurous young men. The smaller provincial towns afforded them little opportunity, for there the trades were largely in the hands of close corporations descended from ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... worldly interests as a legion of foes, to get the better of whom was a point of extremest honour. In his then state of ecstatic agony such a conquest would have cost him little; he could easily have thrown away all his livelihood; but it cost him much to get over the idea that by choosing the Church of England he should be open in his own mind to the charge that he had been led to such a choice by unworthy motives. Then his heart was against him: he loved with a strong and eager ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... fever-cellars—to meet its reward some day at the people's hands. You belong to us at heart, as the Paris barricades can tell. Alas! for the society which stifles in after-life too many of your better feelings, by making you mere flunkeys and parasites, dependent for your livelihood on the caprices and luxuries of ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... who take a few afflicted children and give them special training. Children of that kind have sometimes shown a great deal of unusual talent, and, if so, it is cultivated, and they are put in a way of earning a livelihood." ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... residence and state: That their heads or representatives, D. Francisco Querubin and Melchor Balueg, respectively, force them to pay two pesos each as a war tax, your humble vassals above cited being hardly able to earn their own livelihood and support their families, and, notwithstanding their labor, some of them cannot get anything to eat without appealing to the charity of their richer neighbours; but notwithstanding this sad situation, they offer a peseta each as a ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... with modern democracy as it is,—not as its founders dreamed of it,—picture to himself the operation of a system whereby anything and everything is controlled by elected officials, from whom there is no escape, outside of whom is no livelihood and to whom all men must bow! Democracy, let us grant it, is the best system of government as yet operative in this world of sin. Beside autocratic kingship it shines with a white light; it is obviously the portal of the future. But we know it now ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... opulence, to power which made him the dread of princes and nobles, and to notoriety such as has for low and bad minds all the attractions of glory. He was not long without coadjutors and rivals. A wretch named Carstairs, who had earned a livelihood in Scotland by going disguised to conventicles and then informing against the preachers, led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, followed; and soon from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses of London, false witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics. One ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... exhibited to the world some useful minerals, and Carolina in time will probably do the same. But while the surface of the earth yields abundance of vegetable productions for the use of the inhabitants, and a plentiful livelihood can be obtained by easier means than that of digging into its bowels, it can scarcely be expected that they will apply themselves to deep and uncertain researches. It remains for a more populous and improved state, when ingenious men will probably attempt to explore ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... was dependent for the means of support solely on her own exertions was a genuine pleasure to Selma, and she applied herself with confidence and enthusiasm to the problem of earning her livelihood. She had remained steadfast to her decision to accept nothing from her husband except the legal costs of the proceedings, though Mr. Lyons explained to her that alimony was a natural and moral increment of divorce. Still, after her refusal, he informed her as a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... continued, "died three months ago, in England, whither he had emigrated when I was a mere child, leaving my poor mother to struggle along for a livelihood as best she could. My mother died last year, Monsieur, and I have hard a hard life; and now it seems that my father made a fortune in England and left ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... We absolutely want the caste of shopkeepers as it exists in Europe. By shopkeepers, I mean that humble class of traders who are content with moderate profits, looking forward to little more than a respectable livelihood, and the means of placing their children in situations as comfortable as their own. This is a consequence of the upward tendency of things in a young and vigorous community, in which society has no artificial restrictions, or as few as will at ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... always ready. It would be rather like him: and, in any case, we should soon know all, as Mr. Paasma's dwelling is a little green house close to the miniature quay. We saw his name over the door, for evidently he doesn't entirely depend upon his guardianship of boats for a livelihood. He owns a shop, with indescribable things in the one cramped but shining window—things which only those who go down to the sea in ships could ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... Squire's pew. Its occupants were shielded from the gaze of those in the body of the church by a faded red curtain hung on an iron rail, but the Squire always drew it boldly aside during the exhortation and surveyed the congregation, the greater part of which was dependent on him for a livelihood and attended church as an undergraduate "keeps chapels," for ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... to me. You are making a mock of me. You are insulting me. I bore with you long enough to see how much further your insolence would dare to go. I'm not to have a hand in the administration of my wife's money? I'm to forsake a plentiful means of livelihood? I'm to become a commercial traveller? I'm to expatriate myself? I'm to explain, too, the reasons why I left the army? I would not condescend. Least of all ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... every head, as there are in England. As for thieves, they are for the most part begotten from the same cause; for it is against Nature that any man should venture his life, limb, or liberty, for a wretched livelihood, whereas moderate labour will produce a better. But of this see Sir Thomas More, in the ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... For instance, if one son have a large family, or be disqualified to earn a livelihood, the father may give him a portion larger than the others. But an unequal partition from angry impulse, or weak-mindedness, has no ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... surprised, therefore, one day when Phineas discussed the matter with him fully. Phineas had asked him what would be his chance of success if even now he were to give up politics and take to the Bar as the means of earning his livelihood. "You would have uphill work at first, as a matter of course," ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... of poor and deserving clerics and laics, but many of the noble governors of the Institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their bounty. To get an education for nothing, and a future livelihood and profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that some of the richest people did not disdain it; and not only great men's relations, but great men themselves, sent their sons to profit by the chance—Right Rev. prelates sent their own kinsmen or the sons of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and there mar the nation's general industrial prosperity. Economic changes in recent years have been often so rapid and far-reaching that areas committed to a single local resource or industrial activity have found themselves temporarily deprived of their markets and their livelihood. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... forth, like Coelebs, in search of a wife! Now you must help me farther with your lively imagination; you must choose me a profession to masquerade under. I must, of course, for the attainment of my object, sport the character of a poor gentleman, struggling with honest poverty to gain a livelihood. Come, what shall ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... the interests of the man libelled. For is it not insufferable that, if a poor man under common human infirmity shall have committed some crime and have paid its penalty, but afterwards reforming or out-growing his own follies, seeks to gain an honest livelihood for his children in a place which the knowledge of his past transgression has not reached, then all at once he is to be ruined by some creature purely malignant who discovers and publishes the secret tale? In such a case most undoubtedly it is the truth of the libel which constitutes its sting, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... may have been the fare, and mean as must have been the livelihood under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, Oliver Goldsmith, escaping from these conditions of life, entered others that were for a time, at all events, far worse. One cannot tell what he did, or where he went, or how he lived. Near Salisbury ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland

... accomplishment like breathing. I once knew a youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor of England; the design was certainly ambitious; but I find it less excessive than that of the man who aspires to make a livelihood by whist." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were a living epitome of defunct fashions, and the very raggedest presentment of men who had seen better days. It was gentility in tatters. Often retaining a scholarlike or clerical air, you might have taken us for the denizens of Grub street, intent on getting a comfortable livelihood by agricultural labor; or, Coleridge's projected Pantisocracy in full experiment; or Candide and his motley associates, at work in their cabbage-garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... changeable and uncertain and is by no means such a sure sign of riches or solid position. It is more the sign of success as a public favourite, and is often found in the hands of those who depend on the public for their livelihood, such as actors and actresses, singers, and certain classes of artists, speakers, clergymen, etc. For all such professions it is, however, fortunate, and an extremely lucky sign to have, as it promises ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro

... lofty stature, marvellous bodily strength, and equal boldness, who had joined to these advantages an extreme modesty: he was called Big Ferre. These folks settled themselves at this point to the number of about two hundred men, all tillers of the soil, and getting a poor livelihood by the labor of their hands. The English, hearing it said that these folks were there and were determined to resist, held them in contempt, and went to them, saying, 'Drive we hence these peasants, and take we possession of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... was too young to attract his notice. He had stopped at Mannheim on his way to Paris, whither he was going with his mother on a concert tour. Requiring the services of a music copyist, he was recommended to Fridolin Weber, who eked out a livelihood by copying music and by acting as prompter at the theatre. His brother was the father of Weber, the famous composer, and his own family, which consisted of four daughters, was musical. Mozart's visit to Mannheim occurred in 1777, when Constance ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... succeeding in so far as teaching these eager and knowledge hungry young people what could be learned from books, but little more. Mr. Washington found that about 85 per cent. of the Negroes of the Gulf States lived on the land and were dependent upon agriculture for their livelihood. Hence, he reasoned that it was of supreme importance to teach them how to live on the land to the best advantage. In order to teach the students how to live on the land the school itself must have land. ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... Unluckily, one is helpless. That scoundrel Cousinho—Andreas, you know—has been coveting the brig for years. Naturally, I would never sell. She is not only my livelihood; she's my life. So he has hatched this pretty little plot with the chief of the customs. The sale, of course, will be a farce. There's no one here to bid. He will get the brig for a song—no, not even ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... confession of a middle-class mind that in coming down here I had not looked forward beyond the immediate present. With the horror of that last week still on me I had considered only the opportunity I had for earning a livelihood. To be sure I had seen no reason why an intelligent man should not in time be advanced to foreman, and why he should not then be able to save enough to ward off the poorhouse before old age came on. But now—with that first dollar ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... said he, "we can thee mickle thanks for all that thou biddest us. And wot well that we be no lifters or sea-thieves to take thy livelihood from thee. So to-morrow, if thou wilt, we will go with thee and upraise the hunt, and meanwhile we will come aland, and walk on the green grass, and water our ship ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... containing the gold which is now arriving in this country in such large quantities. It at once struck him that he had seen abundance of the same material in his native hills, when visiting the quarries in which several of his friends and acquaintances earned their livelihood. This impression he conveyed in a letter to his mother, who, as a matter of course, afforded the information to all to whom she had an opportunity of communicating it. The intelligence spread with the rapidity of an electric telegraph; and an excitement ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various

... split up into innumerable septs and sub-castes. As they multiplied from generation to generation an increasing proportion were compelled to supplement the avocations originally sacred to their caste by other and lowlier means of livelihood. There are to-day over 14 million Brahmans in India, and a very large majority of them have been compelled to adopt agricultural, military, and mercantile pursuits which, as we know from the Code of Manu were already regarded as, in certain circumstances, legitimate ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... named Devajnanin, whispered in the King's ear: "How can a man possess such knowledge unattainable by men without having studied the books of magic? You may be certain that this is a specimen of the way he makes a dishonest livelihood, by having a secret intelligence with thieves. It will be much better to test him by some new artifice." Then the King of his own accord brought a covered pitcher into which he had thrown a frog, and said to Harisarman: "Brahman, if you can guess what there is ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... and therefore I was in favor of the bill or any other bill that would prevent the poisoning of the blood of our people in any way whatever by the introduction of either disease, crime, or vice into our midst, and would vote to exclude all paupers or persons who were unable to earn an honest livelihood by labor. That is the correct principle. I think we did, during the war, go to the extreme in one direction to induce people to come among us to share our benefits and advantages, and we gave the reasons why we ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... years in the Garvloits' house when Garvloit had the misfortune to run his vessel aground out near Amland, where she became a wreck. He lost with her nearly all he had in the world, and what was worse, all prospect of livelihood for the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... power?—the other Pope—the one in Rome. Has he anything approaching it? Can he turn a priest out of his pulpit and strip him of his office and his livelihood just upon a whim, a caprice, and meanwhile furnishing no reasons to the parish? Not in America. And not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... would certainly have expired, had not they very quickly given me some support. They took very great care of me, and from that day became my masters. I had the charge of keeping their goats, for they have no other flocks, nor any other livelihood but what they procure by means of their fish. They appeared to be a much more pleasant people than those who inhabit the inland part of the country; they are more industrious. About fifteen days ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... the camel had been its carriers. Gama had brought the more capacious caravel to bear them over a new highway to the western consumers. His success meant the loss of a great part of the business on which the sailors, merchants, and camel-drivers of Arabia depended for a livelihood. Why should they not conspire to kill him ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... ancient history is the "Iron Age," when the tribes of Europe used iron weapons and implements, and had advanced from the nomadic condition to that of cultivators of the ground, though still gaining most of their livelihood from fishing and hunting. This period no doubt approached the period of historical annals, and the iron men may have been the earliest Teutons of the North,—our own forefathers; but of their race or mixture of races we have no certain evidence, and can only make approximate hypotheses,—the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... and divide it among your companions, and scatter to distant parts of the country, where you may yet have a chance of earning an honest livelihood! As for me, I shall have to quit the country altogether, and it will take nearly half this sum to enable me to do it. Now I have not a minute more to give you! So once more pledge ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... life, Mr. Burt," continued Girdlestone, "is a sacred thing, but a human life, when weighed against the existence of a great firm from which hundreds derive their means of livelihood, is a small consideration indeed. When the fate of Miss Harston is put against the fate of the great commercial house of Girdlestone, it is evident which ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... for organizing the workers in cloak factories where she was employed. In the first establishment subcontracting had made conditions too hard for most of the women; and in the second, wages were too low for a decent livelihood for most of ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... the earlier dramatists. The Traitor and The Cardinal are two of the best of his many productions. He was hard at work writing new plays in 1642, when the Puritans closed the theaters. He was thus forced to abandon the profession that he enjoyed and compelled to teach in order to earn a livelihood. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... be judged in relation to the importance of its several intentions, and of its success in gaining them. The arts of reading and writing and figuring all would concede are basal in a world of newspapers and business. Then there is technical information and the training that prepares one to earn a livelihood in some more or less standardized guild or profession. Both these aims are reached fairly well by our present educational system, subject to various economies and improvements in detail. Then there are the studies which it is assumed contribute to general culture and to "training the ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... London. Voltaire, Gray, and Richardson were perhaps the only three conspicuous writers of the time, who had never known what it was to want a meal or to go without a shirt. But then none of the three depended on his pen for his livelihood. Every other man of that day whose writings have delighted and instructed the world since, had begun his career, and more than one of them continued and ended it, as a drudge and a vagabond. Fielding and Collins, Goldsmith and ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... Square. In this meeting, and in Lady Rowley's mothers' meeting in Worship Street, Miss Macpherson began the ministry of love which has extended so widely. She afterwards visited the homes of the poor, and the toil and suffering she witnessed, especially in those where matchbox-making was the means of livelihood, lay heavy on her heart. With her feelings of pity were always quickly followed by practical effort. In the midst of the winter's distress, one of the most cheering gifts received was from her praying band of coprolite diggers. After a watchnight service, they had spent the first moments of ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... knew what inducements led him to act thus. My father was the leading man in his church. The minister looked to him as one of the chief pillars of support to his society, and consequently to his means of livelihood. There was no one in the town upon whom the public eye, religious or political, rested with more hope than upon my father. He exhorted in the meetings with an earnestness worthy of the most devoted follower of Cromwell; and was as strict and rigid in the performance of his public religious ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... fulfil it, Israel—who, however brave-hearted, and even much of a dare-devil upon a pinch, seems nevertheless to have evinced, throughout many parts of his career, a singular patience and mildness—was obliged to look round for other means of livelihood than clearing out a farm for himself in the wilderness. A party of royal surveyors were at this period surveying the unsettled regions bordering the Connecticut river to its source. At fifteen shillings per month, he engaged himself to this party as assistant chain-bearer, little thinking that ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... that you had been born a peasant! Had I been a peasant's child, I might have lived by, and rejoiced in, honest labor! Had I been the daughter of a mechanic, I might have gained my bread by some useful trade. Had I even been the child of some poor gentleman, I might have earned a livelihood by giving lessons in music, in drawing, by becoming a governess, or teaching in a school. But, the daughter of the Duke de Gramont, it is one of the curses of my noble birth that I must live upon charity,—charity ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... turning around the Mississippi, not to say of juggling with it, the desire came to establish, according to the example of the English, colonies in the vast countries beyond the seas. In order to people these colonies, persons without means of livelihood, sturdy beggars, female and male, and a quantity of public creatures were carried off. If this had been executed with discretion and discernment, with the necessary measures and precautions, it would have ensured the object proposed, and relieved Paris and the provinces of a heavy, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... taste displayed by the women in their dresses, and the equality amongst all ranks. At the Rio Colorado some men who kept the humblest shops used to dine with General Rosas. A son of a major at Bahia Blanca gained his livelihood by making paper cigars, and he wished to accompany me, as guide or servant, to Buenos Ayres, but his father objected on the score of the danger alone. Many officers in the army can neither read nor write, yet all meet in society as equals. In Entre Rios, the Sala consisted of only six ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... this, when the sexton came to pay them a visit, the father broke out to him, and told him what a bad hand his youngest son was at everything: he knew nothing and learned nothing. "Only think! when I asked him how he purposed gaining a livelihood, he actually asked to be taught to shudder." "If that's all he wants," said the sexton, "I can teach him that; just you send him to me, I'll soon polish him up." The father was quite pleased with the proposal, because he thought: ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... Besides, I am anxious for some personal knowledge of you that I may judge of your literary merits. You may possibly be one of these, who came hither from the old world to seek your fortune; who have handled the pen as others handle the awl or needle; that is, for the sake of a livelihood, and who, therefore, are willing to work on any kind of cloth or leather, and to any model that may be in demand. You may, in the course of your trade, have accommodated yourself to twenty different fashions, and have served twenty classes of customers; have copied at one ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... situated, in the West End of London, and newly started by a lady who had been left a widow with very slender provision. Several kind women had interested themselves in the case, and had wisely suggested thinking out a means of livelihood in the future rather than ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... the Souls' Cages and the Merrow, or Man of the Sea, was once held in general esteem by the men who earned a livelihood on the shores of the Atlantic. This Merrow, or Spirit of the Waters, sometimes took upon himself a half-human form, and many a sailor on the rocky coast of Western Ireland has told the tale of how he saw the Merrow basking in the sun, watching a storm-driven ship. His form is described ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... there are, to use Huxley's words, "glorious sports of nature" who will not be "corrupted by luxury" but will become industrious historians. To others who are not so fortunately situated, I cannot recommend the profession of historian as a means of gaining a livelihood. Bancroft and Parkman, who had a good deal of popularity, spent more money in the collection and copying of documents than they ever received as income from their histories. A young friend of mine, at the outset ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... two surly looking men were on their knees on the stones; before them was a large heap of pieces of old iron, brass, and copper; they were assorting it, and stowing it away in various bags. They were Spanish contrabandistas of the lowest class, and earned a miserable livelihood by smuggling such rubbish from Portugal into Spain. Not a word proceeded from their lips, and when I addressed them in their native language, they returned no other answer than a kind of growl. They looked as dirty and rusty ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... sisters, left orphans at fifteen, and had lived ever since, as those who work for their livelihood must live, by economy and privation. For the last twenty or thirty years they had worked in jewelry in the same house; they had seen ten masters succeed one another, and make their fortunes in it, without any change in their own lot. They had always lived in the same room, at the end of ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... proofs of my bodily strength he instances the fact that I ride horseback, and of my skill in my trade that I can associate with men able to be extravagant. I believe all of you are acquainted with my success in my trade and the rest of my livelihood, what it may be; yet I will mention these in few words. 6. My father left me nothing, and only within three years I have ceased supporting my mother as she died. I have no children to care for me. But ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... geniculatus. LIME GRASS.—The foliage of these grasses make excellent mats and baskets; and where they grow in quantity afford a livelihood to many industrious persons who manufacture ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... and which made it impossible for him, for many years after, to obtain honest employment. But the world is richer, and safer, by Muller's early misfortune. For it was this experience which threw him back on his own peculiar talents for a livelihood, and drove him into the police force. Had he been able to enter any other profession, his genius might have been stunted to a mere pastime, instead of being, as now, ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

... "Falconbridge." His essays in this line, which were published in the "New York Spirit of the Times," were received with much favor, and widely copied by the press throughout the country. The reputation thus attained, was such that he found himself in a fair way to make a lucrative and pleasant livelihood. His sketches were in demand, and were readily sold, whilst the prices were remunerative, and enabled him to attain a degree of domestic comfort which he had before that time not known. From Philadelphia he removed to Boston, where he hoped ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... curse hath fallen on barbercraft in these days, because of the Identical, whose might I know not. Everywhere it is growing in disrepute; 'tis languishing! Nevertheless till now I have preserved my tackle, and I would descend on yonder city to exercise it, even for a livelihood, forgetting awhile great things, but that I dread men may have changed there also,—and there's no stability in them, I call Allah (whose name be praised!) to witness; so should I be a thing unsightly, subject to hateful castigation; wherefore ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... any social, economical, or mechanical change will introduce in his affairs with reference to a period of time more or less extended into the future. The man who has no capital, who literally earns his daily bread, and whose ability to gain a livelihood for himself and his family depends upon his constant, unintermitted labor, is in no condition to look at any aspect of any question but in the one, vital, all-important view of his personal necessities. Anything which stops his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... apologists? "Their synagogues ought to be destroyed, their houses pulled down, their prayer-books, the Talmud, and even the books of the Old Testament to be taken from them; their rabbis ought to be forbidden to teach, and be compelled to gain their livelihood by hard labor." The Inquisition, at least, did not proceed against the Jews, but against the Judaizers; that is, against those who, after being converted to Christianity, relapsed into their errors, and added sacrilege to their apostasy by the external profession of a creed which they detested ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... a troubled existence amongst counter and adverse influences, so many and so potent. This might be illustrated abundantly. But, as respects the particular question before me, it will be sufficient to say this: With us the profession and exercise of knowledge, as a means of livelihood, is honorable; on the continent it is not so. The knowledge, for instance, which is embodied in the three learned professions, does, with us, lead to distinction and civil importance; no man can pretend ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... "Not that it matters. A chauffeur by any other name would smell as much of oil and petrol. It's actually my real name, too. Are you surprised? I was either too proud or too stubborn to change it—I'm not sure which—when I took up 'shuvving' for a livelihood." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... Should they continue to lead the artificial life which they had taken up during the Master's ministry? That seemed impossible and needless. Should they do nothing but wait? That appeared unwise when life was yet strong in them, and their means of livelihood were scant. It was of course possible to go back to fishing-smacks and fishing-tackle; but should they? ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... bed,' and intimate that, unless I give up the object of my choice, I am not to expect any thing from you, the scene is changed, and, under such circumstances, my spirit would, I trust, never suffer me to be dependent upon any one, while I have health and strength to obtain an honest though a plain livelihood." ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... account to be their peculiar property; wherefore they are proud of it, and drink it to the exclusion of any other, and so live to a green old age which in some cases cannot even reckon its years. And by way of a livelihood, the men of the suburb indulge in hunting, fishing, fowling, and thieving (not a single artisan proper does the suburb contain, save the cobbler Gorkov—a thin, consumptive skeleton of surname Tchulan); while, as regards the women, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... license to practice (and the high income that usually comes with it) entirely dependent on continued conformity to what is defined by the AMA as "correct practice." Any doctor who innovates beyond strict limits or uses non-standard treatments is in real danger of losing their livelihood and status. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... lately died near Landscrone, aged 118 years. She continued to get a livelihood by spinning till she ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, the people it attracts, the harm it does—your father, as you know, has never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be gained in a scandalous ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... little angels have good minds, and study well, the teacher told me. The teacher is young and gentle, with a face full of kindness, a certain expression of sadness, like a reflection of the misfortunes which she caresses and comforts. The dear girl! Among all the human creatures who earn their livelihood by toil, there is not one who earns it more holily than ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... before 1820. With the end of the Napoleonic wars there came great distress in England from which the man of energy sought escape. He turned naturally to America, being familiar, by hearsay at least, with stories of the ease of gaining a livelihood there, and influenced by the knowledge that in the United States he would find people of his own blood and speech. The bulk of this earlier emigration to America resulted from economic causes. When, in 1825, one energetic Member ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... spirit was dissatisfied. He was intensely anxious to own a magazine for himself, and had already made several unsuccessful efforts to obtain one,—efforts which were to be repeated at intervals, and with as little success, until the day his death. He vainly sought a government position, that a livelihood might be assured while he carried out his literary plans. Finally he left Graham's, doubtless because of personal peculiarities, since his occasional inebriety did not interfere with his work; and there followed a period of wretched poverty, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... house, and attempt to carry on the farm, and, on the other hand, it appeared equally out of the question for her to remain where she was, in her lonesome log cabin. She might move into the village, or to some house nearer the village, but what should she do in that case for a livelihood. In a word, the more that Mrs. Bell reflected upon the subject, the more at ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott

... under the excitement of a gold craze men exercise less judgment than at any other time. Except in placer mining, which almost any one can learn, gold mining is a science. Now and again a nugget worth a fortune is picked up, but the average mortal can get a better livelihood, with half the work, in almost any other field of effort. To become rich a knowledge of ores and mining methods ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... that in fact they themselves receive more in return for it than your hirelings do for theirs. For what purpose do men labor, but to support themselves and their families in what comfort they are able? The efforts of mere physical labor seldom suffice to provide more than a livelihood. And it is a well known and shocking fact, that while few operatives in Great Britain succeed in securing a comfortable living, the greater part drag out a miserable existence, and sink at last under absolute want. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... toward the ancient town of Oeiras. He had cast about in his mind for some means of livelihood and had decided to become a goatskin-buyer. He was hoping to come to an arrangement ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... Bischelbach by name, by trade a butcher, who had found the new regime of the Reformers at that city too strait-laced for his tastes and habits, and had come to Geneva, with some vagabonds at his heels, in search of adventures and a livelihood. Him did the prior of St. Victor, greatly impressed with his own accounts of his powers, commission as generalissimo of the forces. Second in command he set a priest, likewise just thrown out of business by the Reformation in the North; and in a council of war the plan ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... caused by the last nights he had remained up and that which he anticipated from the night that was still in store for him. He had put on a look of sadness, that simulated sadness of the priest to whom death is a means of livelihood. He made the sign of the cross, and coming over to them ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... any city in the world. We must remember that there is collected together here a greater number of free human beings than were ever settled on the same space of earth, earning an honest, independent, and sufficient livelihood, and enjoying the fruits of their labour in health and cheapness, freedom and security, such as the world never saw before. There is want and misery. I know it too well. There are great confusions ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... three weeks we remained with the good family we could spell and write our names quite legibly. They all begged us to stop longer; but, as we were not safe in the State of Pennsylvania, and also as we wished to commence doing something for a livelihood, we ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... laugh of welcome, went well with the keen bright eye, the fine cloth of his coat, and the general look of substance about the place. Poultry of all kinds abounded in the mill-yard, where there were ample means of livelihood for them strewed on the ground; but not content with this, the miller took out handfuls of corn from the sacks, and threw liberally to the cocks and hens that ran almost under his feet in their eagerness. And all the time he was doing this, as it were ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... who, looking on this art as a good way of livelihood, enter on the rudiments of it, with great ardor. But this ardor soon abates, in proportion, as they advance, and find there is more study and pains required from them than they expected to find, towards their arrival at any tolerable ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... this growing physical weakness is one of the reasons why so large a share of the boys whose fathers are farmers, and who have been reared on farms, are unwilling to follow the occupation of their fathers for a livelihood. They are too weakly to do the work required by an agricultural life, even by the aid of the numerous labor-saving inventions of ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... you are too youthful a tribune for me to believe that you took up the sword as a means of livelihood." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... I kept her in the stall, or confined to the inclosure, this strange eclipse of her sight was of little consequence. But when spring came, and it was time for her to go forth and seek her livelihood in the city's waste places, I was embarrassed. Into what remote corners or into what terra incognita might she not wander! There was little doubt but that she would drift around home in the course ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... found who would scorn to utter a wilful falsehood, and who deny this propagation of the human chattel for the flesh market; but there can be little doubt that the unbiased seeker after truth will find that such is the case. And why not? Why should those who make their livelihood by trafficking in the flesh of their fellow-creatures hesitate to increase their profits by paying attention to the breeding of them? These facts do not come under the general traveller's eye, because, armed with letters of introduction, he consorts more with ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... my birth, when she was approaching her seventeenth year, and remained a twelvemonth under my roof, engaged in the study of Shakespeare with that accomplished artiste Mr. Mortimer. She intended to pursue what gift she had of voice and histrionic talent as a means of livelihood, she told me from the first, and to get rid of the ineffable weariness and monotony of her life at Beauseincourt ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... hazard. So, whenever he could not find a gentleman whom he could cheat with false dice, tricks at cards, he would go into any hell to try his infallible game. I did not, however, perceive, that he made a good livelihood by it; and though sometimes, either by that method or some other, he had large sums of money in his possession, yet they were spent as soon as acquired. The fact was, that he was not a man who could ever grow rich; he was extremely extravagant in all things—loved women and drinking, and was ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... poor. He used to lament that his scrupulous integrity precluded him from all the common roads to wealth. He did not contemn riches, but he set the highest value upon competence, and imagined that he was doomed forever to poverty. His religious duty compelled him to seek his livelihood by teaching a school of blacks. The labour was disproportioned to his feeble constitution, and the profit was greatly disproportioned to the labour. It scarcely supplied the necessities of nature, and was reduced sometimes even below that standard by his frequent indisposition. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... other, and every now and then glancing shyly at those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to come any day and take Louie's ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... of no mean merit, all capable of admirable verse on occasion; and in various degrees possessed of the lofty, vigorous, and vivid style of that great age. The theatre, and writing for the theatre, afforded to many men of talent a means of livelihood analogous to that offered by journalism among ourselves. They were apt to work collectively, several hands hurrying out a single play; and in twos or threes, or fours or fives, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... until the period of blockade-running, had, with some exceptions, subsisted on a precarious and somewhat questionable livelihood gained by wrecking, had their heads as much turned as the rest of the world. Living was exorbitantly dear, as can be well imagined, when the captain of a blockade-runner could realise in a month a sum as large as the Governor's salary. The expense of living was ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... of the most respectable in Scotland, traced its descent from William De Irwyn, the secretary and armor-bearer of Robert Bruce; but at the time of the birth of William Irving its fortunes had gradually decayed, and the lad sought his livelihood, according to the habit of the adventurous Orkney ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... that something brought it home to me before I wasted any more time." I meant to speak bravely, but I knew more than this. I knew that, with all my air-castles shattered, with the knowledge that to him literature was a pastime, while to me it meant livelihood, I gloried more in his success than I should in my own, that I was glad that he, and not I, was to have fame; and in the tumult of new emotions against which I struggled, my lip quivered, I turned aside my head, and ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... "ye will now write two score. Go to! y' are too cunning for a livelihood of seventy shillings. Selden, see him write me this in good form, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from it the desert tracks lead off in many directions. The camel, who has been the bearer of Egyptian traffic for generations, still does a large share of the transport. A good camel is expensive, but a man who owns one is sure of a livelihood, for he works backwards and forwards across the great solitudes, eating his handful of dates or grain, and drinking the water he carries with him, if he is not lucky enough to camp near a well. Oddly enough camels are not ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... encamped there for the night. Among the first people who came up to us was an Algerine Jew, who held my horse as I dismounted. He was an itinerant working silversmith, gaining a livelihood by going from Tiberias among Arab villages and the Bedaween, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn



Words linked to "Livelihood" :   resource, sustenance, bread and butter, comforts, maintenance, creature comforts, keep, subsistence, meal ticket, conveniences, amenities



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