To place wit above sense, is to place superfluity above utility. [ Mme. de Maintenon ]

A mathematician is a practical man, estimating things by their real utility. [ W. H. Prescott ]

True art is but the anti-type of nature, - the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility. [ James A. Garfield ]

Every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility. [ Sir J. Mackintosh ]

One of the first principles of decorative art is that in all manufactures ornament must hold a place subordinate to that of utility; and when, by its exuberance, ornament interferes with utility, it is misplaced and vulgar. [ G. C. Mason ]

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth. [ Landor ]

As it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way, the biographer is of great utility, as, by communicating such valuable patterns to the world, he may perhaps do a more extensive service to mankind than the person whose life originally afforded the pattern. [ Fielding ]