unoperative

These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are affected by them even without the occasions.

On the Sublime and Beautiful 2007

There lie the qualities of beauty either dead or unoperative; or at most exerted to mollify the rigor and sternness of the terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness.

On the Sublime and Beautiful 2007

These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are affected by them even without the occasions.

General Words Before Ideas 1909

There lie the qualities of beauty either dead or unoperative; or at most exerted to mollify the rigour and sternness of the terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness.

Concerning Smallness 1909

But no method was settled for bringing delinquents to the question of removal: and if they should be brought to it, a door lay wide open for evasion of the law, and for a return into the service, in defiance of its plain intention, -- that is, by resigning to avoid removal; by which measure this provision of the act has proved as unoperative as all the rest.

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763

There lie the qualities of beauty either dead or unoperative; or at most exerted to mollify the rigor and sternness of the terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness.

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763

These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are affected by them even without the occasions.

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763

This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold out to both Houses; while an idle and unoperative act of Parliament, estimating the dignity of the crown at 800,000_l. _ and confining it to that sum, adds to the number of obsolete statutes which load the shelves of libraries, without any sort of advantage to the people.

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763

There are many who love virtue and who detest vice, and this not from hypocrisy or affectation, who notwithstanding very frequently act ill and wickedly in particulars without the least remorse; because these particular occasions never came into view, when the passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by certain words heated originally by the breath of others; and for this reason, it is hard to repeat certain sets of words, though owned by themselves unoperative, without being in some degree affected; especially if a warm and affecting tone of voice accompanies them, as suppose,

On the Sublime and Beautiful 2007

The wishing of a thing is not properly the willing of it; though too often mistaken by men for such: but it is that which is called by the schools an imperfect velleity, and imports no more than an idle unoperative complacency in, and desire of the end, without any consideration of, nay, for the most part, with a direct abhorrence of the means; of which nature I account that wish of Balaam, in Numbers xxiii.

Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. I. 1634-1716 1823