Sentence examples for empty formula from inspiring English sources

She now believes that her "We can do this" slogan was "almost an empty formula," and sees that she gravely underestimated the challenges involved.

Koselleck's own relation to revolution becomes clear in his text, which evinces a certain pessimism or disheartedness as when he asks, in a plea-full way: "Has not the 'world revolution' been reduced to an empty formula which can be appropriated pragmatically by the most diverse groups of countries and flogged to death?" (Koselleck 2004 26).

Reaching out will come to seem indistinguishable from pandering, and the so-called Third Way — the path, which Clinton is credited with blazing and which most of Europe is now supposed to be trying to follow, between welfare-state liberalism and free-market conservatism — will look like an empty formula for political survival.

Given the obstacles against which the masters of the Roman state struggled, it is altogether remarkable that Roman patriotism was ever more than an empty formula, that cultivated gentlemen from the Pillars of Hercules to the Black Sea were aware that they had "something" in common.

"I say this to Sinn Féin - it's still an empty formula, get in there and do your duty to this country or be forever defined by empty rhetoric". Earlier, Fianna Fáil leader Mr Martin said it was a "no brainer" for him to continue to support the Fine Gael-minority Irish government throughout the Brexit process.

Tad Allyn Doyle's new musical version of Carlo Collodi's classic may contain elements that make good children's theater (audience participation, colorful costumes, humor and upbeat music to keep things moving), but the end result here is empty formula.

At the county court level, many of the constitutional rights of which Americans are so proud have degenerated into empty formulas.

For at least a century, the music has been captive to a cult of mediocre élitism that tries to manufacture self-esteem by clutching at empty formulas of intellectual superiority.

Somewhere between the sterile, absolute, and empty formulas of reductionist, totalitarian science and the earnest, hostile, excessively certain make-believe of religious fundamentalism, there is a beautiful place.

In 1927, however, he persuaded his followers to sign the oath of allegiance as "an empty political formula," and his new Fianna Fáil ("Soldiers of Destiny") party then entered the Dáil, demanding abolition of the oath of allegiance, of the governor-general, of the Seanad (senate) as then constituted, and of land-purchase annuities payable to Great Britain.

De Valera then led his new party, Fianna Fáil ("Soldiers of Ireland"), into the Dáil and signed the declaration required under the oath of allegiance, which he now claimed was "merely an empty political formula" that did not involve its signatories in "obligations of loyalty to the English Crown".