Attempts

American industry makes various attempts to find and encourage brilliant students from abroad.

The dog's attempts to climb the tree after the cat came to nothing.

All our attempts were in vain.

All our attempts failed.

The attempts were for the most part unsuccessful.

Attempts to redraw voting districts have hit a wall of opposition.

They scorned our attempts at reconciliation.

Attempts to fight the fire with buckets soon proved fruitless.

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

The French language, by the way, is a clear stream that affected writers have never been, and will never be able to ripple. Each century has thrown in this limpid current its fashions, its pretentious archaisms and its preciousness, without anything surfacing from those useless attempts, those powerless efforts. The nature of this language is to be clear, logical and nervous. It won't let itself be weakened, obscured or corrupted.