Example sentences of "be nothing but " in BNC.
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| 1 | I do not mean to imply , he wrote , that nothing existed before that moment , no plans , no designs , no sketches and no notes , of course there were plans and designs , sketches and notes , how could there not be , he wrote , when my whole life has been nothing but a preparation for this beginning , not only in the sense that everyone 's life is always a preparation for every beginning in that life but in the quite specific sense that my own life has always been a preparation for this beginning , nothing but a preparation for this beginning , both consciously and unconsciously , with everything I have done as well as everything I have thought , everything I have felt as well as everything I have suffered . |
| 2 | ‘ The officials at Preston have been nothing but encouraging and in the early days the coaching staff put in a lot of time to make up for my lack of experience . |
| 3 | How can a man who believes that from foetus to Senior Citizen Railcard his existence has been nothing but a nuisance , that in his wake he has left nothing but pain and trouble , possibly love himself ? |
| 4 | It 's been nothing but Dennis , Dennis , Dennis ( or days now . |
| 5 | When he had joined the ship he had been nothing but eagerness and smiles , romping about like a new puppy , but now he had turned unrelentingly morose . |
| 6 | Sharpe felt a sudden fear that he had raised a false alarm and the force he had seen had been nothing but a feint . |
| 7 | We can then consider the implications of this analysis for one of the general views identified in the introduction — that there has been nothing but conflict between science and religion . |
| 8 | ‘ She 's been nothing but a nuisance all her life . ’ |
| 9 | They 've been nothing but trouble since they arrived here . |
| 10 | He had been nothing but trouble for the Major . |
| 11 | She was screaming at him now , that with a man like him she should have found another , her life had been nothing but work , work , work , worry , worry , worry , and now he made out she was a common whore , when she had n't had an instant 's pleasure in her livelong days . |
| 12 | had been nothing but a black window space . |
| 13 | In these three months there has been nothing but support for this scheme , some of it qualified , but nevertheless support , that it should go ahead . |
| 14 | What had happened hours ago , a lifetime ago , when he 'd kissed her , had been nothing but an aberration . |
| 15 | The little jokes , the smiles , the anecdotes about his childhood , about his city , had been nothing but clever prelude to her seduction but the worst of it was that she 'd been so damnably easy to seduce . |
| 16 | I 'm beginning to think that car park has been nothing but trouble since it was built . ’ |
| 17 | I am nothing but a stomach of cheap tin , empty but for the clanking of a few tin cans which have been squashed by a gargantuan hand and thrown together . |
| 18 | From the point of view of certain owners , these diet-shifts are nothing but a nuisance , but if ever , for some dramatic reason , the cat found itself without its usual owner , they would stand it in good stead . |
| 19 | They are nothing but ‘ foolishness ’ or ‘ egotism ’ . |
| 20 | These rooms are nothing but a dangerous hazard for the adventurers , and best avoided , unless you are using an adventure theme which forces them to enter these terrains to regain some lost object or person ( see Adventures in Castle Drachenfels ) . |
| 21 | Whereas for the men garments have a determined , precise meaning , that is to say , a truth value , for the women clothes are nothing but signifiers open to a variety of meanings ; they are items whose function and referential meaning can easily be changed … . |
| 22 | We are all but a part of a whole which has its own , its distinct , its other meaning : we are not ourselves , we are crossroads , meeting places , points on a curve , we can not exist independently for we are nothing but signs , conjunctions , aggregations . |
| 23 | Athletico are nothing but money-grabbing bastards . |
| 24 | According to Dunsire ( 1982 , p. 15 ) , ‘ quango-hunting ’ has since 1979 ‘ become a Conservative blood-sport , under the illusion that they are nothing but wasteful ‘ empire-building ’ ' . |
| 25 | Her heroine , Jocelyne ( no English person can pronounce her name ) battles with a Rayburn and nature-hating farmers , ‘ trees are nothing but a damn nuisance ! ’ |
| 26 | You are nothing but a … . ’ |
| 27 | At the conference of the Non-Aligned held in Managua in January 1983 the Cuban Foreign Minister , Malmierca , argued that the Falklands War ‘ proved to Latin Americans that their instruments and means of collective defence with the United States , which were supposedly for protection against extrahemispheric powers , are nothing but mechanisms to be used when Washington 's interests are threatened by pro-independence actions in any of our states ’ . |
| 28 | Makepeace 's classes are nothing but advanced courses in riot-fomentation . |
| 29 | Is my hon. Friend aware that in my constituency the majority of people infinitely prefer the council tax to Labour 's alternative — the so-called fair rates , which are nothing but a return to the dreaded rating system that we had before , and which was especially hated in the south of England ? |
| 30 | It is not only impossible to theorize fruitfully on the basis of abstract relations which are nothing but abstract relations , but it is only possible to theorize fruitfully on the basis of abstract relations that refer directly to observable phenomena in material reality . |