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More "Foolish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been proposed. It's good politics to urge it, but it would be foolish to carry it out. People vote against blueskins. Wipe them out, and where'd ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... fear'd the breath of foolish praise, Might taint the lily which so humbly grew; That flattery's sun might shoot delusive rays, Impede her progress, ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... Mr. Montague for more money. He said there was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make the request and foolish in Mr. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... standards and technicalities and systematised facts upon which to base an estimate. The point was raised a quarter of a century ago by Morris in his "News from Nowhere," and indeed it was already discussed by More in his "Utopia." Our contemporary economics is, however, still a foolish, pretentious pseudo-science, a festering mass of assumptions about buying and selling and wages-paying, and one would as soon consult Bradshaw or the works of Dumas as our orthodox professors of economics for any ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the dark aspect of having helped to bring the other about. As the memory of that night recurred to him he became conscious of an obscure, traitorous force lurking within him, betraying him, leading his complacency into foolish and fatal paths, into paths which totally misrepresented him.... He would not really have gone away with ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hope of increasing it by trade, or other fair means, and so benefit yourself and others, is right; but to risk it for nothing, with the certainty of impoverishing some one else if you win, or injuring yourself if you lose, is foolish and unfeeling. The fact that some one else is willing to bet with you, only proves that you have met with one as foolish and unfeeling as yourself, and the agreement of two unfeeling fools does not result in wisdom. You will hear it said, my boy, that a man has a right to do what ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... Napoleon's marriage with Marie Louise and the consequent connection with the imperial family of Austria had been for the former Corsican officer, become Emperor of the French. Since, now, a lady who belonged to one of these great families was disposed to marry him, it would have been foolish to put obstacles in the way; it was necessary to act with despatch; time ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... is cruel to kill them just for sport, as is often done, and very foolish, as we have just seen, to destroy them for the sake of the fruit, which the insects make way with in much greater ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... would indeed be foolish to think that the German Socialists will throw down their rifles on the day when France and Germany come to blows; but it will be very important that the Imperial Government should persuade them that on ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... a year. Few had as yet realized that the struggle was one between mighty nations which only the perseverance of peoples, and not the merits of Ministers, could decide; and the inevitable deferment of foolish hopes would sooner or later have produced a reaction in favour of the retiring Premier and his party. But it would have been accompanied by a revival of party warfare which would have undoubtedly weakened national unity and impaired the prospects of success; and all parties to the Coalition—Liberal, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... clever at all. That was my way, I suppose. I just learned to spell words of two letters, which, of course, was of no use. A fellow can't do much with ba, be, by, and bo, and these are about all the words I remember. I used to think, when we first became chums, how foolish you were to be always reading and studying. Now I see what a pull you have got by it. I expect it is partly because your father was a clever man, and, as most of the people thought, a gentleman, that you came to take to it. Well, if I ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... Anna, runne vnto the water side, They say AEneas men are going abourd, It may be he will steale away with them: Stay not to answere me, runne Anna runne. O foolish Troians that would steale from hence, And not let Dido vnderstand their drift: I would haue giuen Achates store of gold, And Illioneus gum and Libian spice, The common souldiers rich imbrodered coates, And siluer whistles to controule the windes, ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... young man," said Mrs. Fabens, "if the Cressey girls, and Desdemona Faddle do feel above him. They will set their caps in vain for Merchant Fairbanks, for he detests their foolish pride and finery as much as any one, and laughs in his sleeves, I'll warrant, at their dangling curls, and their silly lisping talk, when they try to speak polite to him; although he likes to flirt with them, and make them think he is ready to ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... thy forward, noisy tongue Proclaim'd thee always in the wrong, Thou might'st have mingled with the rest, And ne'er thy foolish sense confess'd; But fools, to talking ever prone, Are sure to make their ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in prophesying, have no leisure to look backwards! It is we that have despised life and beauty and God; it is we that make graven images, and worship the fire till we cannot see the sun, who pray daily for peace, and cast the jewel in the mire when it is put in our foolish hands. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... assurance, and, with them, the sweetness, of this young girl were charming and perplexing to Sir Basil. Girls so assured he had found harsh, disagreeable and, almost always, ugly; they had been the sort of girl one avoided. And girls so lovely had usually been coy and foolish. This girl walked like a queen, looked at one like a philosopher, smiled at one like an angel. He fixed his mind on her last words, rallying his sense of quizzical paternity to meet ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... heard, then answered. Perhaps the motion was too sudden; and human nature starts at murder, though strong necessity compels it. I have thought long of this; and my first feelings were like yours; a foolish conscience awed me, which soon I conquered. The man that would undo me, nature cries out, undo. Brutes know their foes by instinct; and where superior force is given, they use it for destruction. Shall man do less? Lewson pursues us to our ruin; and shall ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... of the young Herakles. As his father had been slain in battle, the mother had brought him up in the wilderness a stranger to arms—foolish deed—mad woman! Parsifal relates that he had followed "glittering men" and after the manner of the vigorous primitive peoples, had led the wild life of nature, following only natural instincts. Gurnemanz reproaches him for ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... to L5 a-head worth of our manufactures, the foreign nations to whom we are willing to sacrifice the British agriculturists, take off per head ONLY AS MANY PENCE. In preferring the one to the other, therefore, we are, literally speaking, penny wise and pound foolish. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... her good-night. I have a yet clearer memory (like a dream of fifty years ago) of a little bare-legged girl in a sailor's jersey, who used to run up into my lodgings by the sea. But why should I trouble you with foolish reminiscences of mine ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... is evident that you have been overworking and are growing foolish. I make excuses for you, since anybody who passed first out of Sandhurst must have overworked, but it does not alter the fact. Now I must go home and see about that house, for as yet I have arranged nothing at all, and the place is in an awful state. Remember that my father ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... at Chakdara, and so times without number, it is the gallant British subaltern, in spite of silly chatter, who again and again has shown the highest attributes of an officer and a soldier. It is the foolish custom of a certain class of Englishman to decry all that is their own; and amongst the latest of these victims of a dyspeptic imagination is the British officer. Men call him stupid, who would themselves have no chance of passing the intellectual test which every young officer has to go through. ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... which people from age to age choose to bestow on their feeding intervals. Some call supper dinner, and others call dinner luncheon. First comes the prevailing mode instituted by fashionable society, and then a foolish subscription to it by a section of the community who are too poor to follow it, and too proud not to seem to do so. Formerly it was usual for the Great to dine and sup earlier than the Little; but now the rule is reversed, and the ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum[Lat], evasive; irrelevant &c. 10. weak, feeble, poor, flimsy, loose, vague. irrational; nonsensical &c. (absurd) 497. foolish &c. (imbecile) 499; frivolous, pettifogging, quibbling; finespun[obs3], overrefined[obs3]. at the end of one's tether, au bout de son latin. Adv. intuitively &c. adj.; by intuition; illogically &c. adj. Phr. non ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... first Mandarin, said to him: "Son of Heaven, you make a mistake." To which the Emperor replied: "Kouang, you are foolish." ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... George," he said, reproachfully, "you great big foolish boy, or you no laugh like dat all. You done ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... indeed, cause to thank God both for her preservation and for the good that this seems to have wrought in her. She had been a spoilt child, and, being well-favoured, her head had been turned by flattery, and she indulged in all sorts of foolish dreams. Now she is truly penitent for her folly. Had you not arrived, my Lord, I should, when we had finished our supper, have told Master Shenstone that I knew of this vast service he has rendered us—a service to which the other ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... you should be seen at the Ritz alone with Lord Donald. I therefore have her authority with me in asking you either to write or telegraph to him again to-night, giving up the plan. Better still if you would depute me to do it. It is really a very foolish plan—if ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... or under the shrouding boughs of the wood, there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish—perhaps a young blooming girl, not knowing where to turn for refuge from swift-advancing shame, understanding no more of this life of ours than a foolish lost lamb wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on the lonely heath, yet tasting the bitterest ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... prudent of men, learn further that a thruppenny bit, which to the foolish will often seem a mere expenditure of threepence, to the wise may represent a saving of that sum. For how many occasions are there not in which the inconsequent and lavish fool, the spendthrift, the young ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... Watts, a rich gentleman-commoner, who had also met her at Oxford. Surely with such and other rivals, the chances of the quiet, unpretending, undemonstrative boy of nineteen were small. But no, Miss Linley was foolish enough to be captivated by genius, and charmed by such poems as the quiet boy wrote to her, of which this is, perhaps, one ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... thinke she meanes to tangle my eies too: No faith proud Mistresse, hope not after it, 'Tis not your inkie browes, your blacke silke haire, Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheeke of creame That can entame my spirits to your worship: You foolish Shepheard, wherefore do you follow her Like foggy South, puffing with winde and raine, You are a thousand times a properer man Then she a woman. 'Tis such fooles as you That makes the world full of ill-fauourd children: 'Tis not her glasse, but you that flatters her, And out of you she sees her ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... fellow, don't go mad with your foolish fears. Pray for yourself and us, if you please, for it is a terrible night, and we may well stand in need of prayer; but do your duty like a man. Stand in your place until I summon you, and then come, if a score of ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... little dream of your youth,—that you once met a pretty American girl who was foolish enough to refuse all that you ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... me, no! It's only that I have a very foolish and very stupid prejudice against Irishmen—as I ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... him. They take great pains in endeavoring to understand the construction of the world, and whether or not it will perish, and at what time. They believe that the true oracle of Jesus Christ is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, which signs do not thus appear to many of us foolish ones. Therefore they wait for the renewing of the age, and ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... Anthony earnestly. "You know, she's pretty mad about you, but as long as you're not interested the way I am, well——" He bit his lip nervously, and went on: "I think you'd agree with me that it would be rather foolish of her, and very disappointing and disillusioning later on for her to marry the kind of a man she thinks she wants to marry. She has a notion that the man she marries must be a cross between Adonis, and—and Diamond Dick! She wants a man who carries six-shooters in all his pockets, and ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... great feather in his cap. Oh, I don't say young Murchison isn't a rising fellow, but it's foolishness for his party—I can't think who is responsible for it. However, they've got a pretty foolish platform just now—they couldn't win this seat on it with any man. A lesson will be ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... restless, had become exasperated beyond all power of a return to sleep. Concerns of youth and love kept them murmuring, murmuring in the acute if distant ears of one whom youth had left and for whom love was impossible. Beyond his foolish, figured wall were two contrasted types of young vigor, and they babbled, babbled on, in the sensitized hearing of one from whom vigor was gone and for whom hope ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... Then there can never be an explanation. What avails it that another loves you, if he does not understand you? Such love is a curse. What sort of companions are they who are presuming always that their silence is more expressive than yours? How foolish, and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as if you were the only party aggrieved! Has not your Friend always equal ground of complaint? No doubt my Friends sometimes speak to me in vain, but they do not know what ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... equal for cleverness in Thrums, man or woman, an' yet she's fair skeered about thae cloaks. Aince a woman sets her mind on something to wear, she's mair onreasonable than the stupidest man. Ay, it micht mak them humble to see hoo foolish they are syne. No, ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... "But if so, it was because I was foolish enough to let it be dark. And you yourself must never do it again. If things get bad at night you must wait until morning and then come out here. So, if you remember what I have said, it will get light again. Will you promise to ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... wish you not to have unfavourable impressions as regard our concern with such matters. We have a canon declaratory on vestments, asserting the ordinary surplice, gown, hood, and stole. It is stupidly worded, but the meaning is obvious. I was vexed from your experience to hear of such foolish proceedings at Bridge of Allan, contrary to canon and to common sense.... The green part of the dress which caused your wonder, naturally enough, is not a freak of new vestments, but is a foolish ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... and arbitration treaties made with a view to its use in all international controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war. But we should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves to become foolish idealists if we did not realize that, with all the nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves in a similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from taking advantage of us and of our inability to defend our ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... that for a kiss he looked to receive a box on the ear. The thought of possessing her was almost disquieting. At times he believed that she was just playing with him and his position appeared simply foolish and absurd. But to-day, after this promise, uttered hesitatingly, in faltering tones such as he had heard other women use, he felt suddenly certain of his power and that victory was near. He knew that things would be just as he had desired them to be. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... assure me of kind success: Go, valiant soldier, go before, and charge The fainting army of that foolish king. ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met Ona, at a horse fair a hundred miles from home. Jurgis had never expected to get married—he had laughed at it as a foolish trap for a man to walk into; but here, without ever having spoken a word to her, with no more than the exchange of half a dozen smiles, he found himself, purple in the face with embarrassment and terror, asking her ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... to escape, eh?" he said. "Well, we don't think you will. If you intended to escape you would not be so foolish as to tell us about it; and then, if you did attempt it, you could not get out of Cologne with an English face like yours. That's alright," he repeated, "you will report this ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... to him—sweet, frank, intelligent, sympathetic—they had been his founts of refreshing, his manna by the way. Until that fatal night, when Melrose had crushed in him all that foolish optimism and self-conceit with which he had entered into the original bargain! Since then, he knew well that his letters had chilled and disappointed her; they had been ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... about our troubles to those persons who can give us direct help, but even in this case we ought as much as possible to come to a provisional conclusion before consultation; to be perfectly clear to ourselves within our own limits. Some people have a foolish trick of applying for aid before they have done anything whatever to aid themselves, and in fact try to talk themselves into perspicuity. The only way in which they can think is by talking, and their speech consequently ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... guilt. Their confession was received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. I should judge that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to atone upon the gallows for their ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... was of a singularly patient disposition in dealing with all ordinary affairs of life. We know how, whenever a hitch occurs in a railway journey, a great number of passengers become irritated, almost to a kind of foolish frenzy. He always took these matters most patiently. He well knew that no persons are so anxious to avoid such detentions as the officials themselves, and never allowed himself to altercate with a helpless guard ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... thou art like unto our father, led away by the foolish imaginations of his heart; yea, he hath led us out of the land of Jerusalem, and we have wandered in the wilderness for these many years; and our women have toiled, being big with child; and they have borne ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... enemies, her stooping form, her hanging arms, and all her disentangled hair as toils designed to entrap man's heart. Then how much more should you suspect her studied, amorous beauty! when she displays her dainty outline, her richly ornamented form, and chatters gaily with the foolish man! Ah, then! what perturbation and what evil thoughts, not seeing underneath the sorrows of impermanence, the impurity, the unreality! Considering these as the ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... been sitting amidships, moved toward his friends, and the three spent an hour talking of what was now termed by all "a foolish venture." ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... forenoon, and he having bought some things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them) dined with me, and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest myself for being so foolish! ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... So our less distinguished but equally sensitive hero had always the impression that his long wrists and ankles were subjects of ridicule. He believed the ladies did not fancy him; he therefore made no efforts to propitiate their favor. If they happened to laugh in his presence—and the foolish things are always happening to laugh—he made sure it was at himself; and he shot at them most vengeful flashes from his cavernous orbs, which annihilated them not at all, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... for his sin than 'I was afraid,' each makes the other blacker. Israel had cast off the fear of the Lord, which would have preserved it from the ignoble terror of men, and the consequence was that it trembled before an angry, unscrupulous woman. It had revolted from Rehoboam and his foolish bluster about whips and scorpions, and the consequence was a worse slavery. If we fear God, we need have no other fear. The sun puts out a fire. If we rebel against Him, we do not become free, but fall under a heavy yoke. It is never prudent to do wrong. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... led, among other causes, to the minister's overthrow many years later. Between three and four thousand officers and men, including Admiral Hosier himself, died there. Walpole's aim, however, was reached; though Spain made a foolish attack by land upon Gibraltar, the presence of the English fleet assured its supplies and provisions and averted the formal outbreak of war. The emperor withdrew from the alliance, and under English pressure also revoked the charter of an East India company which he had authorized ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... towards middle age, he grew more domineering in tone, more noble in his dreams, and more foolish in much of his conduct. He was soon to shine in each of these three lights. He returned from America in a fury. For two years he had been busy in Pennsylvania in a brave, but not very successful, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... take me as bail for such an amount," I said to Medini, "and even if he would I should never be so foolish as ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you foolish one," she persisted, her curiosity fully aroused. "I must and will know about it now;" and she stamped her little foot with an air of command, which, toward her favorite, was ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... skilful. ingrat, ungrateful. injure, f., wrong, insult, injury. innocent, innocent, pure. innombrable, innumerable. inou, unheard of. inqui-et, -te, anxious. inquiter, to make anxious. inquitude, f., anxiety. insens, senseless, foolish. insipide, insipid, tasteless; devenir —, to pall upon. insolent, m., insolent man. inspirer, to inspire. instrument, m., instrument, means, musical instrument, insulter, to insult; — , to mock. interdit, confused, perplexed. intress, self-seeking. intresser, to cause to be interested. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... law both in its spirit and its letter is obstinate and incorrigible, what we cannot bend to our purpose we must break—"Our sins we hope are of the smaller order; a little harmless gallantry, a little innocent jollity, a few foolish expletives which we use from the mere force of habit, meaning nothing by them; a little warmth of colouring and licence of expression; a few freedoms of speech in the gaiety of our hearts, which, though not perhaps strictly correct, none but the over-rigid would think of treating ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... know that no individual will suffer by my thirty years' service to the public. If things should give us the comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall be found, I was going to say fighting, (that would be foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances in such a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... always endeavour to hide our own—and which do you mean to hide, or do you intend to come out perfect? I daresay you can discover some little habits of your own, Eusebius, free from vanity as you are, that tend to these little concealments! Do you remember how a foolish man lost a considerable sum of money once, by forgetting this human propensity? He had lost some money to little K—— of Bath, the deformed gambler—and being netted at his loss, thought to pique the winner. "I'll wager," said he, "L50, I'll point out the worst leg in company."—"Done," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place), but could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family: as, for instance, the fabulous stinginess of the younger lines of Leffertses (the Long Island ones); or the fatal tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish matches; or the insanity recurring in every second generation of the Albany Chiverses, with whom their New York cousins had always refused to intermarry—with the disastrous exception of poor Medora Manson, who, as everybody knew ... but then her ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... strange land; whence are we to get food here? No harvest will grow on these bare rocks, no meadows are spread out before our eyes. The whole land is bare and desolate." But the son of Zeus smiled and said, "O foolish men, and easy to be cast down, if ye had your wish ye would gain nothing but care and toil. But listen to me and ponder well my words. Stretch forth your hands and slay each day the rich offerings, for they shall ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... it may be, but quite as good, we think, in matter, as many a saw and dogma that have been flung at our foolish ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... she could have accepted "as a little child." But everywhere, in her own opinion, she stood for Justice; justice for women as against the old primaeval tyranny of men; justice, of course, to the workman, and justice to the rich. No foolish Socialism, and no encroaching Trusts! A lucid common sense, so it seemed to her, ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... together, and worse yet, being married in Albion village right at our very doors; I don't hardly dare to go to bed nights for fear of hearing in the morning that some of the other young folks have been led astray by this foolish performance of Hetty's; I know it was Hetty's fault; Nathan never had ingenuity enough to think and ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said, "we won't just bother about anything for the rest of the day. We'll be cheerful and jolly and foolish, like we were on Friday. God knows how all this infernal tangle is going to pan out, but we may as well snatch one evening's happiness out of it while we've ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... own perfectly selfish way. She was just as willing to bear his troubles, and plan for their relief, and deny herself for his pleasure, as Roland was willing to accept the sacrifice. Of course she was foolish, perhaps sinfully foolish, and it is no excuse for her folly to admit that there are thousands of ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... beautiful face. To-morrow he would send the letter. To-morrow? Why, yes, to-day, like all to-days in the removed and placid light of all to-morrows, would be shown needlessly hectic. Ten to one something would have happened in the night to make to-day look foolish. If nothing had happened, if it still was war, it could only be a swiftly over business, a rapid and general recognition of the impossibility ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... just in the mood to make a good shot. The fox stops just out of range and listens for the hound. He looks as bright as an autumn leaf upon the spotless surface. Then he starts on, but he is not coming to me, he is going to the other man. Oh, foolish fox, you are going straight into the jaws of death! My comrade stands just there beside that tree. I would gladly have given Reynard the wink, or signaled to him, if I could. It did seem a pity to shoot him, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... baby owl looked like a very young and foolish monkey as it sat in Jud's hands and rolled its ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... toads, and frogs, and chuckling birds who seem to think we must be foolish to come right out here into no-man's-land, sir. That's about all. How ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... He has been mapping the whole field of operation here, as you know—details of the forts, and the location of all the concealed gun mountings and platforms we have put in in case the Belgians should be foolish enough to try to ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... "Foolish child!" said her mother, beginning to relent, as she usually did on such occasions, "I don't wish you to be uncivil to her; but I should like you to be more with Kate Howard, and Anne de Vaux;" and the conversation ended, as several others of the same description had done, by leaving things precisely ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the title of 'Airy's Popular Astronomy.'—It had been found necessary to include under one body all the unconnected Commissions of Sewers for the Metropolis, and Lord Morpeth requested me to be a member. Its operations began on Oct. 28th. In constitution it was the most foolish that I ever knew: consisting of, I think, some 200 persons, who could not possibly attend to it. It came to an end ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... would please the sportive fancy now so strong in him. After recrossing the river he saw on his left an opening of considerable size, and he heard grunts and groans coming from it. He knew that a buffalo troop was resting there. The foolish beasts had wandered into the Indian vicinity, but they would learn the proximity of the warriors the next day and wander away. Meanwhile Henry needed them and would use them. Now and then he reverted to the religious imagery which he had learned when he was with Red Cloud and his ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... famous Donkey who, when placed between two bundles of hay, starved to death because he was unable to decide in favour of either by breaking the equilibrium between two equal but opposite attractions. They slandered the worthy animal. The Ass, who is no more foolish than any one else, would reply to the logical snare by feasting off both bundles. Will my caterpillars show a little of his mother wit? Will they, after many attempts, be able to break the equilibrium of their closed circuit, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... room, eager to burn my moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was, however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... in Germany no Jacob Stainer, and in England no future Banks or Forster. Why so? The answer is twofold. Partly there is fault in the demand, arising from the marked preference of this age for cheapness at the expense of goodness; partly, too, there is a fault in the supply, a foolish desire on the part of the makers to give maturity to their instruments, wherein they always completely fail, yet they will not give up their conceit. Here, again, were we dealing with matters of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... charge me with ambition, and glorious vices; let me be the evil genius of the commonwealth, the tinsel villain of the political melodrama; but don't threaten me with the fool's cap, or write me down with Dogberry; above all, don't quote me in cold blood, that the foolish people may see, after the fever heat has subsided, what trash I have palmed upon them in the name of liberty!' Yet this is the way, Jonathan, to deal with demagogues. You make too much of yours, man. You are not the blockhead we take you for after all; but you delight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... had dictated his previous answer sprang from the thought that the foolish females downstairs could not contradict it, and he adhered calmly to the course now he was ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... with that sudden force which before had startled her. "Because I can't stand by and see purity joined to corruption. Some women will sacrifice anything for sentiment. You wouldn't do anything so damn' foolish as that." ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... ex-milliner and her husband, though these two had retired to their cabin, whence I could not get them to stir, either by threat of being left behind or any entreaty. No, they were both as obstinate as mules in their cowardice and foolish fears! ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... colonel. You and I are the reasonable members of this family. We should be very foolish if we let ourselves by martyrized by that pair of lovers, who live on poetry! Give me your arm! Don't you think I'm improving? I lean on people's arms, wear fashionable hats and gowns and trinkets—I'm learning I don't know how many fine things—I'm ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... was fumbling with the gravel in the hopper. He was conscious that his replies were foolish and trivial, but for the life of him he ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... blood flamed as he thought of their manoeuvrings, and putting his hand to his holster, where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... then can be more sad than the man who has felt in the depths of his soul the thrill of that opening light, and the further that he journeys, finds more and more weary persons who tell him insistently that it was nothing but a foolish incident of youth, a trick of fancy, a passing mood, and that life must be given to harder and more sordid things? It is well for him if he can resist these ugly voices; if he can continue to discern what there ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... amazement of the Spartans. Again he gained the victory, and a truce was made, but he was treacherously seized, and thrown into prison. However, this time he was set free by a maiden, whom he gave in marriage to his son. At last Eira, the chief city of Messenia, was betrayed by a foolish woman, while Aristomenes was laid aside by a wound. In spite of this, however, he fought for three days and nights against the Spartans, and at last drew up all the survivors—women as well as men—in ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but a foolish, quixotic undertaking after all," he told himself, when his negotiations were completed, "but I must have some excuse for remaining here. That girl is the most beautiful being I ever met. She has power to move me as I was never moved before. I simply cannot go away and leave her. I am sure her ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... read the papers like other people, and we know now what business took you to Eastwich. But it's foolish of you to hang about the neighbourhood where you might ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... "for, in the first place, I've a foolish partiality for poachers, and am sorry when any of 'em come to hurt; and, in the second, I'd be mighty displeased if any ill had happened to one of Sir Piers's flesh and blood, as this young ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... gallows than sitting at his own table, would act most foolishly, if he did not hang himself. So any one who clearly saw that, by committing crimes, he would enjoy a really more perfect and better life and existence, than he could attain by the practice of virtue, would be foolish if he did not act on his convictions. For, with such a perverse human nature as his, crime would become virtue. From a letter to Wm. ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... thing lasts," commented our hero to a friend, "I am afraid I shall do some foolish thing, for if I know myself there is no want of what is called courage in my nature, and I can only hope I shall not be led ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... that they were to give you the preference?-That was not at all stated. They simply gave us the preference, because they had a notion-a very foolish notion-that we might have acted in the same way as other parties would probably have acted if they had not done so: that was, by giving them a warning and turning ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... took a quiet interest in all her charity cases. They would often talk them over at night, and in his easy careless way he would turn over all his spare money to help in the work. Eleanore would protest at times, and tell him how utterly foolish he was in not putting money aside for himself. But soon, deep in another case of poignant human misery, she would throw all caution to the winds and use her father's money—every dollar he could spare. That was another ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... memories. The coating of those walls had been formed of the vapours of the soul, of the exhalations of accumulated desires and regrets, even more than of the smoke of tapers; how foolish it was then to have painted this crypt in squalid imitation of the catacombs, to have defaced the glorious darkness of these stones with colours which were indeed fast vanishing, leaving only traces as of palette scrapings in the consecrated soot on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in the carriage she could not help thinking that she was one of the dullest creatures on earth. How could she be so foolish as to imagine that any one in the house cared whether she were there or not? More probably she was only in the way. She could not help regretting her defective education, and a few days after, when she returned to Sandsgaard, she noticed that her uncle did not pat ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do anything wrong or foolish? You know the falsehood of that ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... Angus always laughed at my dreams, but I have a strange feeling whenever I think of this. Oh, Elspie, you can't tell how sweet it was! And so I should like to call my baby Olive, for the sake of the beautiful angel. It may be foolish—but 'tis a fancy of mine. Olive Rothesay! It sounds well, and Olive Rothesay ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cannot maintain that Jaggard behaved well. On the other hand, it were foolish to judge his offence as if the man had committed it the day before yesterday. Conscience in matters of literary copyright has been a plant of slow growth. But a year or two ago respectable citizens of the United ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and easygoing, began to get much exercised over these attentions of the police. The Patel, a foolish and dissipated young man, found his liberty seriously curtailed by having frequently to attend the City Police Court to report progress. The village Mahars, or low-caste men, are liable to be called upon amongst their other duties to serve as village constables. These men were ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... you go trying to make a hero out of me," said Walter, hotly, "I won't have it. I only did what anyone would have done, and I made a whole lot of foolish ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... But it could be that Travail knew of the value of Sutter's shell collection. Yesterday a letter had come from the Federal Arts Museum offering five thousand credits for the lot, and while he had made no mention of the amount, Sutter had been foolish enough to tell Travail there had been ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... across him that this life of his, after all, had not been either good, or glad, or sane, but foolish, perverted and base. Sarudine, the handsome Sarudine, entitled to all that was best and most enjoyable in life, no longer existed. There was only a feeble, emasculated body left to bear all this pain ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... been over then, as all was over with Rogers and Gratian! This foolish expedition would thus have come to a conclusion worthy ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... grandmamma nearly made him spoil his hat, he fidgeted with it so, and he hardly dared to ask for more than one subscription—she is so beautifully polite, and she often is laughing in her sleeve. She says so few people can see the comic side of things and that it is a great gift and chases away foolish migraines. I think she has a grand scheme in her head for me, and that is what we are ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... I let her go on the stage, I knew something dreadful would happen to her," she wailed. "Of course Mr. Dix is foolish and eccentric, but I never thought he ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... next week Mrs. Thayer came, in great tribulation, to know how I ever could have done so foolish and useless a thing as report that case to Miss Dix! Oh dear! Oh ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... such proceedings as took place twelve years afterwards. She still continued to brave public sentiment, lived on in the same free and easy style, paying no regard to the scowls of the sanctimonious or the foolish tittle-tattle of the superstitious. She kept her house of entertainment, shovel-board, and other appurtenances. Sometimes, however, she resented the calumnies circulated about her being a witch, in a manner that made it to be felt that it was best to let ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... answered. "Bertie has deceived you, but it may be for some foolish scheme of his own. He may be guiltless of this: it is only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... "It is not foolish. It is very useful for me to learn to climb." So saying he went on scrambling up the railing of the bannisters ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... test not so much one's progress as a greater and more perfect habit of virtue. Bion maintained that his friends might think they had made progress, when they could listen as patiently to abuse as to such language as the following, "Stranger, you look not like a bad or foolish person,"[283] "Health and joy go with you, may the gods give you happiness!"[284] While as to Pyrrho they say, when he was at sea and in peril from a storm, that he pointed out a little pig that was quietly enjoying some grain that ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... "And that's another foolish thing!" exclaimed Aunt Dora. "To allow two girls to reach their age and have nobody able to distinguish between them. Dressing them just alike, and all! It ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... for the answering rimes, Arnaut used light assonances which almost amount to rime in some cases. The Monk of Montaudon in his satirical sirventes says of Arnaut: "He has sung nothing all his life, except a few foolish verses which no one understands"; and we may reasonably suppose that Arnaut's poetry was as obscure to many of his contemporaries as it ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... But it will not last long, and when the day of their triumph is over, they will have to pay dearly for it. They will destroy the temples and raze them to the ground, flooding the earth with blood. But the foolish children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of mutiny for any length of time. Suffused with idiotic tears, they will confess that He who created them rebellious undoubtedly did so but to mock them. They ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... the use of opium is no wiser, and just as futile, in China, as King Jamie's foolish decrees against tobacco proved to ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... of "The Powerful Crayfish and the Insatiable Wife" is almost identical with that of Grimm. At last the woman wishes to be God, and the crayfish sends the foolish couple ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... pilgrims draw ever nearer to God, obtaining joy and gladness in all the march, until at last 'sorrow and sighing shall flee away.' But instead of this he had made for himself a crooked path, and had lost his road and his peace in the mazes of wandering ways. 'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... so foolish. They are not only not insisting upon her telling her secret, but announced to me their determination not to do so in the future. I wish you could have seen that man's face when he told me what a delicate, nervous little thing his child was, and the doctor said she must not be fretted if she ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... losing my glory, I fell down from that excellent car and while falling, I beheld myself turned into a snake, with head downwards. I thus implored that Brahmana, "May this curse be extinguished, O adorable one! You ought to forgive one who has been so foolish from infatuation." Then he kindly told me this, as I was being hurled down (from heaven), "The virtuous king Yudhishthira will save thee from this curse, and when, O king, horrible sin of pride will be extinguished in thee, thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Edward— or whatever be his name—either leave us at this present moment, or do at any time hereafter regulate himself by any commands save our own, or those of our Follower, Achilles Tatius. And now, allowing this foolish affair, which I think was blown among us by the wind, to pass as it came, without farther notice, we crave to know the grave matters of state which brought you to our presence at so late an hour.—You look again at this Varangian.—Withhold ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... as foolish as wicked. Why should I? For what interest should I say your child is ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... alive by grasping the stool and aiming a very vicious blow. The sentries rushed forward to disarm him, but were ordered back into their places. Captain Titlow explained that such demonstrations of self-defense were foolish and useless, and that it would be much better for Mr. Davis to submit to the inevitable necessity. But while receiving this advice, Davis took the opportunity of grasping the musket of one of the sentries, and in ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... of humanity when Christless, which is set forth in this text, and that is, the dejected weariness arising from the fruitless wanderings wherewith men are cursed. As a verse in the Book of Proverbs puts it, 'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because they know not how to go to the city.' Putting aside the metaphor, the plain truth which it embodies is just this, that there is in all men's souls a deep longing after peace and rest, after goodness and beauty and truth, and that all the strenuous efforts ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... could not hush its wailing cries; she knelt beside the cradle, singing her strange, weird songs in a voice that never trembled, and all the time that foolish Marcelle was sobbing and trembling at ...
— Harper's Young People, December 2, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... can make up your minds I'm not going to be so foolish again," spoke her brother. "This has been a lesson to me—one I won't forget ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... he did it, or how far he succeeded. We are content to take our opinions and criticisms ready made, no matter from whose mouth they fall; and one hears everywhere phrases that, once let loose from the Pandora's Box of some foolish brain, never ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... tears of impotent rage filled his eyes. "You shouldn't treat me that way, sir," he complained presently. "I've been trained not to question orders, even when they seem utterly foolish to me; I've been trained to obey them—on time, if possible, but if impossible, to obey them anyhow. I've been taught loyalty to my chief—and I'm sorry my chief found it necessary to make a buffoon of me. I haven't had a very good time the past ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... for the purpose of capturing more cannibals, and on his return Hispaniola, where he had left his brother Don Diego in charge as President and Don Pedro Margarite as Captain-General, he found affairs in the worst possible condition owing to the foolish and inconsiderate conduct of the colonists, which had converted the friendly natives into hostile enemies and placed the very existence of the colony in jeopardy. After some hostilities, a degree of tranquillity was established and Columbus ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... felt foolish because Jesus had made him answer his own question. Hoping to escape embarrassment, he asked, "Just ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... and said little at the time, he said fewer foolish things than most people, and thus obtained the reputation of being clever and well-informed, of which he was very proud and very careful. He lived freely, almost profusely, and thus put aside every year but little more than about half his income. He had all his clothes made in Paris, was ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... "How foolish!" he said with vexation, "I ought to have brought my instruments with me. A common lock which could be opened with a nail, and I have not even ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... his head as he replied: "I have learned not to reveal all my feelings. Beyond that I cannot say. But I am so fully convinced that whatever befalls me in this life is part of a great plan, that it would be foolish for me to complain or whine. Whatever happens, no one shall ever be able to say that he heard a whimper from Daniel Boone. Whate'er may come to us, lad, do not let any of these Shawnees see that you are in the least ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... a dream about you two years ago," Dick went on. "You don't remember anything about me; but our meeting, your face as you stood that day with your back to the wall, were stamped on my heart as with a branding-iron. Of all the foolish things that a man could do perhaps I chose the worst; for ever as I stood and watched you the shadow of shame grew up beside you, and other people turned away from you. But I thought I saw further than the rest; I imagined that ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... goods and gayest them to him. After the which thou forsookest thy place, of thine fondness and infatuation for him, and camest with him to this country. And now he hath cast thee out from his thought and married another and hath made the issue of thy foolish fancy for him to be durance vile." Cried Halimah, "Be silent, O accursed! Though he be married to another, yet some day needs must I occur to his thought. I cannot forget the nights I have spent in his company and in any case I console ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... Semalembue, an influential chief there. We slept at the village of Monze's sister, who also passes by the same name. Both he and his sister are feminine in their appearance, but disfigured by the foolish custom of knocking out ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... hope this will be a lesson to you never to shut yourself into a room again, Bunny," said Miss Kerr severely. "It was a very foolish thing to do, and I cannot say that I am very sorry that you got a little fright, for I really think you deserved to suffer something for your naughtiness. But tell me, little man," she said to Mervyn, "are you ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... is prosperous, or at ease, is sure to drop into the notion that 'to-morrow will be as this day, and much more abundant,' unless he keeps up unslumbering watchfulness against the insidious illusion of permanence. If he yields to the temptation, in his foolish security, forgetting how fragile are its foundations, and what a host of enemies surround him threatening it, then there is nothing for it but that the merciful discipline, which this Psalmist goes on to tell us he had to pass through by reason of his fall, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... souls, but of our mental work. So far as it is good art, indeed, and done in realistic form, it may perhaps not die; but so far as it was only good thought—good, for its time, and apparently a great achievement therein—that good, useful thought may yet in the future become a foolish thought, and then die quite away,—it, and the memory of it,—when better thought and knowledge come. But the better thought could not have come if the weaker thought had not come first, and died in sustaining the {20} better. If we think honestly, our thoughts will ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... renowned tailor. She made a frill for his best shirt, and washed and pleated it with her own hands. And how pleased she was to see him so dressed! How proud she felt of her brother, and what quantities of advice she gave him! Her intuition foresaw countless foolish fears. Lucien had a habit of resting his elbows on the table when he was in deep thought; he would even go so far as to draw a table nearer to lean upon it; Eve told him that he must not forget himself in those ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... also assented, characterizing the certificates as "very foolish forgeries," but adding that he was not sorry that the occasion had arisen for bringing them into a court of justice, where their authenticity could be inquired into by evidence, as the existence of documents ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... "There, foolish old Yankee," she said, softly, her mouth close to his; "since you are so ashamed I give you back your kiss—and all is made right between us, because we are just where we started a little ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... my feelings. Six years in a tomb, a comic opera sort of tomb, where a silly surf was forever pounding, and foolish palms kept waving. Six years—for nothing. Six years, while Hayden, guiltier than I, stayed behind to enjoy the good things of life, to plead for the girl whose lover ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... "Lily is a foolish child on such matters. She cannot bear the thought of giving pain to any dumb creature; and just before our garden there are a few trout which she has tamed. They feed out of her hand; she is always afraid they will wander ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... myself the penalty of refusing to perform a contemptible action, enjoined by a wicked man? No, no, my sweet wife; I shall go to Altdorf, when occasion may require, without considering myself bound to observe Gessler's foolish edict." ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... victory in battle. The lover enjoys the moment, but precisely not for the moment's sake. He enjoys it for the woman's sake, or his own sake. The warrior enjoys the moment, but not for the sake of the moment; he enjoys it for the sake of the flag. The cause which the flag stands for may be foolish and fleeting; the love may be calf-love, and last a week. But the patriot thinks of the flag as eternal; the lover thinks of his love as something that cannot end. These moments are filled with eternity; these moments are joyful because they do not seem momentary. Once look at ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... land of the Cid than does this miraculous agent of the Bible Society, by favor of whose pleasantness we can, any hour of the week, enter Villafranca by night, or ride into Galicia on an Andalusian stallion (which proved to be a foolish thing to do), without costing anybody a peseta, and at no risk whatever to our necks—be they long ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... people," answered Dic. "We are all foolish when frightened. The other day the barn door slammed to with a crash, and I was so frightened I tried to put the collar in the horse's mouth." Rita laughed, and Dic continued, "Once I was in the woods hunting, and ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... the firing to arrange his troop in the formation he deemed best. His troop was not in solid formation; his men were about ten yards apart. Of course, to have walked forward deployed through the jungle, prior to reaching the ground where we were to fight, would have been a course of procedure so foolish as to warrant the summary court-martial of any man directing it. We could not have made half a mile an hour in such a formation, and would have been at least four hours ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... world last I heard the slow beat of the Winter rain - Poor foolish drops, down-dripping all in vain; The ice-bound Earth but mocked their puny might, Far better had the fixedness of white And uncomplaining snows—which make no sign, But coldly smile, when pitying moonbeams shine - Concealed its sorrow from all human sight. Long, long ago, in ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... but it was all so grand and awe-inspiring. Occasionally there was an opening through which we could see the snowy peaks, seemingly just beyond us, toward which we were headed. But when you get among such grandeur you get to feel how little you are and how foolish is human endeavor, except that which reunites us with the mighty force called God. I was plumb uncomfortable, because all my own efforts have always been just to make the best of everything and to take things as ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... with me for being what I am? You must not idealize me, my dear. I am a woman, and no better than another. I don't go out of my way for society; but I admit that I like it, just as I like going sometimes to an indifferent play, or reading foolish books, which you despise, though I find them soothing and amusing. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... licentiate in natural science. It gave me a fine chance of renewing my acquaintance with the seaside flora, which had delighted me a few years before on the shores of the wonderful Gulf of Ajaccio. It would have been foolish to neglect it. A degree does not confer the right to cease studying. If one really has a touch of the sacred fire in one's veins, one remains a student all one's life, not of books, which are a ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... and glanced around in evident terror, "For Heaven's sake, hush!" he said, hastily. "Pray forget these foolish hallucinations, and, above all, do not venture to talk about them at ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... making an effort, be as bright and as comfortable as they are. There are, as you will find, many brilliant examples of female heroism and self-devotion exhibited here; but in some instances women seem to try how helpless, how foolish a silly woman can be. Ah," he broke off, as a terrific crash followed by a loud scream was heard, "I fear that ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... "You little foolish chap, do you know what you have lost? You were right there—you might have heard Her when She said it! You might have peeped between your fingers and seen Her face—angels in Heaven! Her face!—with the love-light in it. You poor ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... to lie to Ivar. Besides, they say he can smell dead birds. And if he knew, we wouldn't get anything out of him, not even a hammock. I want to talk to him, and he won't talk sense if he's angry. It makes him foolish." ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... strange visitors asked for him, that he came home at midnight oftener than at dusk. Nor was it till her child was near a year old that Hitty discovered her husband's old and rewakened propensity,—that Abner Dimock came home drunk,—not drunk as many men are, foolish and helpless, mere beasts of the field, who know nothing and care for nothing but the filling of their insatiable appetite;—this man's nature was too hard, too iron in its moulding, to give way to temporary imbecility; liquor made him savage, fierce, brutal, excited his fiendish temper ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... while he waited for the answering rimes, Arnaut used light assonances which almost amount to rime in some cases. The Monk of Montaudon in his satirical sirventes says of Arnaut: "He has sung nothing all his life, except a few foolish verses which no one understands"; and we may reasonably suppose that Arnaut's poetry was as obscure to many of his contemporaries ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... "It seems so foolish to call in those fellows when the whole thing might be settled quietly right now," ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... suddenly and unexpectedly walked into the room. He looked over what I had done, and remarked the quantity of paper used over it, which indeed was not small. Upon this cursory inspection he held my work for a foolish waste of time and paper; and it would have been all over with my labour of love for that time, if my brother (Christoph), who had so often stood as protector by my side, had not just then been on a visit with us. He had become the minister of a place which lay a few hours' ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... fellow! you did a very foolish thing. There, say no more on that subject; it gives me pain, my Tiny. So talk on as much ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to take notice of these indecencies, Washington set a high example. In other countries, in France and England, for example, the victims of such abuse resorted to duels with their abusers: a very foolish and inadequate practice, since it happened as often as not that the aggrieved person was killed. In taking no notice of the calumnies, therefore, Washington prevented the President of the United States ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... good many of us have bills to meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in Manitoba, Dakota, and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen by ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... beauties. That was a task for a lifetime. Whatever was doubtful, this was certain, that one was set in a mysterious, attractive, complex place; if one regarded it carelessly, it seemed a commonplace affair enough, full of material activities, dull necessities, foolish stirrings, low purposes; but if one looked a little closer, there were strange, dim, beautiful figures moving in and out, evanescent and shadowy, behind the nearer and more distracting elements. Here was hope, with a far-off ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and showing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable. Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap, as she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do this, that we all stopped in our foolish contention. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... he asked you your father's and mother's, and you said it was my lord and my lady, and that was all the answer he could get from you, for you did not know anything about a surname, and I must say I think it is a very foolish thing not to teach children their names and proper directions, for if you could have told yours, your friends would have been wrote to, and you would now have been with them, instead of being a poor little ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... dazed. Daffin, larking, fun. Daft, mad, foolish. Dails, planks. Daimen icker, an odd ear of corn. Dam, pent-up water, urine. Damie, dim. of dame. Dang, pret. of ding. Danton, v. daunton. Darena, dare not. Darg, labor, task, a day's work. Darklins, in the dark. Daud, a large piece. Daud, to pelt. Daunder, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... nothing, boy," was the reply. "Only we're foolish over things we love, and the Gull was all that I had left. It's a dark and lonely death she's having there. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... but, like other young and foolish things, he would not learn. Soon, the little dog Grip passed by, and Tidy laid his ears back on his neck and rushed at Grip ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... away, like a bird on the wing, And the little boys dance on the sands in a ring. The wind may fall, or the wind may rise— You are foolish to go; you will stay if you're wise. The little boys dance, and the little girls run: If it's bad to have money, it's worse to ...
— Under the Window - Pictures & Rhymes for Children • Kate Greenaway
... Bow. 'Zounds what foolish Canaanits were they to run in debt to their eyes for an houres sleepe sooner then they ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... connection with an infidel and heretic! Do you not see that all this is an artifice of Satan? He can transform himself into an angel of light. Do you suppose this heretic would be brought back to the Church by a foolish girl? Do you suppose it is your prayers he wants? Why does, he not seek the prayers of the Church,—of holy men who have power with God? He would bait his hook with this pretence that he may catch your soul. Do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... says that if he could earn fifteen shillings a week regularly on land, he would give up the sea altogether. I very much doubt it. The sea has him fast. He says further that nobody would go to sea unless he were caught young and foolish, and that few would stay there if they could get away. There are, among the older fishermen of Seacombe, some who have worked well, and could still work, but prefer to stay ashore and starve. Tony holds them excused. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... chief left the selection of husbands to his sisters. They should join the men in the dance and go home with whom they chose. The aliens did not join the dancers, preferring instead to remain in their own little brush house half a mile distant, with its single-slant roof, "For it is foolish," said one, "to think that two such handsome young maidens as they are would ever look with favor upon our rags and wrinkles. We would better lie here to-night and rest in sleep after our busy day." Each then brought forth a sacred pipe and tobacco, which they used only ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... preaching order, because I believe that, unless we are in a position ourselves to take over the government of those places we are able to control, the people of Ulster, if let loose without that organisation, and without that organised determination, might in a foolish moment find themselves in a condition of antagonism and grips with their foes which I believe even the present Government would lament. And therefore I say that the course we recommend—and it has been solemnly adopted by your four hundred representatives, after ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... to marry his daughter to that rowdy. Benoit was always rather off on the surface, but he has usually been shrewder at bottom. Cuiller infatuates him. He hasn't a single antecedent, but has been treating Benoit so much to liquor and boasting, that the foolish man follows him like ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... Baron, I do not see why, to keep the secret of these foolish boys, Waverley and Stanley, and of my wife, who is no wiser, one old soldier should continue to impose upon another. You must know, then, that I have so much of that same prejudice in favour of my native country, that the sum of money which I advanced to the seller of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... at what period the two Castiles were bared of their woods, but the Spaniard's proverbial "hatred of a tree" is of long standing. Herrera combats this foolish prejudice; and Ponz, in the prologue to the ninth volume of his journey, says that many carried it so far as wantonly to destroy the shade and ornamental trees planted by the municipal authorities. "Trees," they contended, and still believe, "breed ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... you buy some of the rubbish are usually rewarded with unqualified success. After fighting my way through this edifice I was taken in hand by a juvenile guide, who discoursed in the orthodox fashion of his kind about the Whirlpool Rapid, pointed out where plucky, foolish Captain Webb met his death, crushed by the force of water, and, lower down, the spot where his body was found. Then my young chaperon unburdened himself of a string of horrors concerning men in barrels, insane women who ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... dearest and ever dearest brother, I did not mean to weep so; it was very foolish; but then you know we girls weep for almost ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... be sure, though she might be compelled to yield to her daughter's better sense, could never be constrained by her own child to hold her tongue, and the arguments with which she abandoned many of her foolish purposes were almost as fatal to Clarice's attempts at good government as the perfect accomplishment of these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... attempt to jest upon his dusky colour and foreign accent; but Master Merton, who, though lately much corrupted and changed from what he had been with Mr Barlow, preserved a great degree of generosity, put his hand into his pocket in order to relieve him, but unfortunately found nothing to give. The foolish profusion which he had lately learned from the young gentlemen at his father's house, had made him waste in cards, in playthings, in trifles, all his stock of money, and now he found himself unable to relieve ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... choice between two evils, always to choose the lesser of the two. In this case I think there can be no question as to which is the lesser of the two evils between which we have to choose; because if we were foolish enough to choose death it would mean the end of all things sublunary for us; whereas if we choose life, even with the condition attached, there is always a sporting chance of something happening ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... and your officers, intend to return home," he said. "Of course, each of you is free to do as he chooses; but it appears to me a most foolish thing to leave your country forever, and exile yourself in the service of France, when you are free to return home. You know how little French promises have been kept during this war, and how little faith is to be placed on them ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... was foolish," she said, smiling. "But you must have some tea and wait until she comes. I don't think she will ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... you?" cried Mildred. "She's a very common person who happens to be named Buck and now they are trumping up some foolish old tale that they were Bucknors 'way back yonder in the middle ages and that they are related to us. It is too ridiculous ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... of his bed that night, rubbing them between his fingers, that they could be nothing but particles of keenly-tempered chromium steel. And chromium steel, he knew, was not used in gas pipes. It was foolish to think of it as a subject for lathe work. It was equally absurd to accept it as an everyday element in any plumber's everyday work. Trotter was not ignorant of the fact that steel of this character was used almost exclusively in the construction ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... holding a great clandestine orgy! In an apartment as bare as my own, there are a dozen of them, seated in a circle on the ground, attired in long blue cotton dresses with pagoda sleeves, long, sleek and greasy hair surmounted by European pot hats; and beneath these, yellow, worn out, bloodless, foolish faces. On the floor are a number of little spirit-lamps, little pipes, little lacquer trays, little tea-pots, little cups—all the accessories and all the remains of a Japanese feast, resembling nothing so much as a doll's ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... gray, and ranging in their ages from four years old to fourteen years or more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way from the floor when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a heavy, good-tempered, foolish fellow, about half a head taller than ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... and black cattle, might have been raised in Georgia for the same market. Lumber was also in demand, and might have been rendered profitable to the province, but nothing could succeed there under the foolish restrictions of the Trustees. European grain, such as wheat, oats, barley, and rye, thrived very ill on the maritime parts; and even silk and wine were found upon trial by no means to answer their expectations. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... hide it in the same place, or find a safer one," she announced. "Yet it may be just as well not to mention the robbery to Polly Burton. She is sure to need more strength than she possesses to be able to start on this perilous journey to France almost at the beginning of winter, with only you foolish children as her companions. Besides, I presume Polly left the money in the most conspicuous place in the house; she never has learned not to trust the entire world. I allowed the thief to escape ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... 'Neath the Ygdrasil ash Than is thought of By every foolish ape. Goin and Moin (They are sons of Grafvitner), Grabak and Grafvollud, Ofner and Svafner Must for aye, methinks, Gnaw the roots of ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... of hair, a foolish thing have we done, To bind what gods have sundered unkindly into one. Why should a lowly lover have touched Taheia's skirt, Taheia the well-descended, and Rua child of ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Jackson's arbitrariness sprung from a foolish whim of his, taking his election as equivalent to the enactment of all his peculiar ideas into law. Ours is a government of the people, he said; the people had spoken in his election, and had willed so and so. Woe to any senator or representative ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... foolish, Teddy. I hope you were not really hurt, Henry. [She feels the back of his head. He flinches]. Oh, poor boy, what a bump! I must get some vinegar and brown paper. [She goes to the bell ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... at once to offer his congratulations to Alexander, and called also upon Draga. It has even been suggested that Russia arranged the affair, and that Draga was her tool. This is, however, improbable. It was more likely the achievement of an ambitious and most foolish woman. But that Russia jumped at it as the very best means of compassing Alexander's ruin cannot be doubted, for no less a person than the Tsar accepted the post of Kum (Godfather) at the wedding, thus publicly announcing his approval of the marriage at which he was represented by a proxy, ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... of human vicissitudes, gently checked me: 'Don't you be too sure of that.' He made two or three peculiar observations; as when shewn the botanical garden, 'Is not every garden a botanical garden?' When told that there was a shrubbery to the extent of several miles: 'That is making a very foolish use of the ground; a little of it is very well.' When it was proposed that we should walk on the pleasure-ground; 'Don't let us fatigue ourselves. Why should we walk there? Here's a fine tree, let's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... day for a year squandered in idleness or in foolish pursuits means the sacrifice of all the advantages just mentioned. And any one who keeps up idleness or folly for a year, usually ends in having a ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the goodness to remark that I have taught you how to parade. In time I doubt not you will follow me with as good a will as you have hitherto followed your own devices. These, I take leave to tell you, were very foolish. If you follow me I shall lead you in the thick of the fighting, should there be any. If you leave me, or if I have the honour to be killed, you will all have your throats cut. I do not mean to be killed, gentlemen, and rely upon you in the ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... shape, come near 45 Men clinging to delusions so insane? And thus, experience proving that no few Of our opinions had been just, we took Like credit to ourselves where less was due, And thought that other notions were as sound, 50 Yea, could not but be right, because we saw That foolish men opposed them. To a strain More animated I might here give way, And tell, since juvenile errors are my theme, What in those days, through Britain, was performed 55 To turn all judgments out of their right course; But this is passion over-near ourselves, Reality too close and too intense, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... to do," said Harry, "and if Arthur says anything more about this silly dueling business, send for us. We'll come back, and we three together will pound his foolish head so hard that he won't be able to think about anything at all for ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pronounced a fault by some who believed they detected in him the potential capacity of rivalling Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto on their own ground, had he only conserved his energies. This is a foolish supposition. Lorenzo's many-sidedness was but the reflection in himself, as the most accurate mirror of the time, of all that wondrous susceptibility to beauty, that eager craving after the realization of the [greek: to kalon] ("the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... fancy-dress ball, and all were to wear masks. The waltz which she had learned to dance from Lady Blythebury herself and which was only just coming into vogue in England, was to be one of the greatest features of the evening. There would be no foolish formality, Lady Blythebury had assured her. The masks would preclude that. Altogether the whole entertainment promised to be of so entrancing a nature that she had permitted herself to look forward to it with ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... rumors, which led them to imagine the danger was for the time averted. They began, very prematurely, as the result showed, to be confident of success, and talked of punishing Philip for his presumption. In this they were encouraged by certain foolish orators, who sought to flatter the national prejudices. Demosthenes in this oration strives to check the arrogance of the people; reminds them of the necessity of defensive rather than offensive measures, and especially of the importance ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... until to-day. I went there, to be told that, to their regret, my unknown benefactor had not sent them the usual monthly remittance. They regretted also that their foolish rules prevented them advancing me as much as a sou. No reasons given, no names disclosed. I haven't a centime. Not a canvas can I sell. I've fasted since ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... of my pupils; they are good little things, rather foolish, but amiable. But I understand your feeling, my poor Miss ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... friends if they knew any thing about the tradition; I thought they seemed rather reluctant to speak of it. O, there was some foolish story, they believed; they did not well know what ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the rope. "That's correct! I had a hell of a foolish dream for a growed-up man. You'd not think ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... me to stand on the very verge of the precipice, and see two foolish boys roll down stones, and perhaps make an avalanche of themselves! Now, you know, C., I could not spare you; first, because I have not learned French enough yet; and next, because I don't know how to ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... this evening and talk the matter over? There's an opening for a fellow like you with us that's just developed within the past few days, and—this is strictly confidential—I have succeeded in convincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter which business men shouldn't let stand in the way of business. After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle; a misunderstanding that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with a good cigar would ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... announced. "No, don't look frightened. It's only that poor Biddy's belle trouvaille has got a heart. She's not the tinted Canova-nymph, the piece of correct inanity, I honestly believed her.... She idolised Biddy—small credit, for who could help it? She submitted to be adored by that poor foolish boy who's dead.... Now she's her black-avised Doctor's humble ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... equally a mistake to suppose that this awakening amongst the masses is due either to the activity of the Ali Brothers or myself. For the time being we have the ear of the masses because we voice their sentiments. The masses are by no means so foolish or unintelligent as we sometimes imagine. They often perceive things with their intuition, which we ourselves fail to see with our intellect. But whilst the masses know what they want, they often do not know how to express their wants and, less often, how ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... so incensed, when she came to the upshot of the adventure, that he wished to go back at once and make the slim youth's acquaintance. But she would not permit so foolish ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... Christiancy for a divorce from a young Washington woman, who was a clerk in the Treasury Department when he married her. The irascible, jealous old man magnified trifling circumstances into startling facts, and deliberately attempted to brand his young wife with infamy. She may have been foolish, she may have said or done what was not wise, but those who knew her well asserted that she had given no cause for the terrible accusations brought against her by the man who persuaded her to become his wife, and who proved the truth of the proverb, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard— All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding calls not Thee to guard— For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people, ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... looked wretched, and Lord Aberdeen told me he is only ill at being obliged to go; he is quite miserable to do so, but the great gentleman at Johannisberg has most ungraciously refused to listen to his entreaties to remain, which is very foolish, as they don't know who to send in his place. I am very sorry to lose him, he is so amiable and agreeable, and I have known him ever since I can remember anybody; he is, besides, equally liked and on equally good terms with ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... "It is the most foolish thing I have ever heard of," she said to herself, pettishly, as she looked after him. "I can't think how such an idea ever occurred to him. He must have known that even if I had not determined as I have done to devote myself to our cause, he was the ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... good deal of nonsense in that old saw," she interrupted; "at all events, the most foolish fools I have ever known stayed still and didn't do anything. Rushing shows a certain movement of the mind, even if it is in the wrong direction. However, Mr. Macdonald is both opinionated and dogmatic, but his worst enemy could never ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... you take pains,' said Mysie; 'but you mustn't bother her with questions in the middle of a lesson, or she tells you not to chatter. She likes to have them all kept for the end; and then, if they aren't foolish, she will ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have them," her husband assured her. "They like to think there are others as foolish as they are. And I'm going to place Mr. District Attorney," he broke out suddenly and fiercely, "between two mediums. ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... to our mental and spiritual life as are vitamins to our physical well-being. Ruskin has called our attention to the tendency of rivers to lean a little to one side, to have "One shingly shore upon which they can be shallow and foolish and childlike, and another steep shore under which they can pause and purify themselves and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasions," and has likened them to great men who must have one side of their life for work and another ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... but if so, we should have double respect for him, for it would prove that he is not above his business. You appear to have the foolish opinion that it is the kind of work that demeans or elevates a man. I know of but two classes of men, the worker and the drone. The king who rules wisely and the tailor who does honest work are pleasing to God in the position in which he has ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... longer a free heart! You who know this indescribable power so well, explain to me the strange feeling which makes men always expect from the following day something better than the preceding day has bestowed upon them? "Do not be so foolish!" That is all the answer I can give myself; if you know a better, tell me, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Scottish judge, born in Kincardineshire, an eccentric writer, author of a "Dissertation on the Origin of Language" and of "Ancient Metaphysics"; had original fancies on the origin, particularly of the human race from the monkey, conceived not so foolish to-day as they ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... safety-thing, as they calls it, into such a dangerous pisition, you must be chuckling and grinning, must you? I only wish my husband, Mr. Giblet, was here, he should soon wring your necks, and pluck some of your fine feathers for you, and make you look as foolish as a peacock without his tail." Mrs. Giblet's ire at length having subsided, she was handed down in safety on terra firma, and our heroes transferred their assistance to the other passengers. The violence of the concussion had burst open the coach-door ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... any more butter. Ephraim stayed and stayed, and kept talking about the oxbow he had come to see about a great deal longer than I thought there was any need of; and I could not get courage enough to go out, though I was sore ashamed and vexed at my foolish shyness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... quote his very words when he spoke of the foolish jealousies and heartburnings, due to misrepresentations, that have influenced Kentucky against the East as a section and against the Government as favouring it: 'The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort; and what is perhaps ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... to reach the gold fields of Teslin Lake and the Yukon it is absurd and foolish. It will never be used again for that purpose. Should mines develop on the high divides between the Skeena, Iskoot, and Stikeen, it may possibly be used again from Hazleton; otherwise it will be given back to the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... first, fell in love with me when I was eighteen—six years ago," she presently resumed. "Of course I do not count all the dear, foolish boys before that—they say in Millerton that the boys attach themselves to me to finish their education—but that's all foolishness. I'm so very fond of boys! I could laugh and hug them all! They're so—so theatrical! But the man was different; he was fifteen years older than I; and alas! another ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... behind them; it was a very old one and something was the matter with it so that they didn't think it worth while repairing. So the next morning, there it stood near the elm tree out in the meadow. Then, what do you suppose? Well, it was a very foolish thing to do, but Chalmers got it into his head that some of the animals had been left in ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... to put into your mind that solid and salutary idea that no good morals are to be found outside religion, and that the maxims of the philosophers, who pretend to institute a natural morality, are nothing but whims and babblings of foolish trash. The rationality of good morals is not to be found in nature, which in itself is indifferent, ignorant of good or evil. It is in the divine word, which is not to be trespassed against without after regret. The laws of humanity are based ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... I pity your case, To see you so foolish yourself to undo: I durst yet promise to purchase you grace, If you would, at length, your errors forego. Therefore, I pray you, be ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... he would come, his heart sinking as he realised the consequence of his own foolish weakness. There was a knock at ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... hollow cave, such as I have heard my father say the first inhabitants of the earth dwelt in. Then I thought it was like a waggon, or a cart, and that it must be something moveable. The shape of it ran in my mind strangely, and one day I ventured to ask my mother, what was that foolish thing that she was always longing to go to, and which she called a church. Was it any thing to eat or drink, or was it only like a great huge play-thing, to be seen and stared at?—I was not quite five years of age ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Times of Friday this morning I saw a letter signed G.U. which I have no doubt is a mistake for J.U. and means John Unthank and which signifies he and his family are in Paris. It is a letter complaining of the shabby costume of Englishmen and is a foolish letter but it will have the effect of making me furnish myself with a new wideawake or something of that sort at Paris for my present wideawake has got another hole in it and is really very bad though I don't know why it should wear so fast as I take great care of it and am ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... glow-worm's lamp, Itself a sun to light such worlds as ours; And round about Him clouds of living light, Bright clouds of cherubim and seraphim, Who sing His praise and execute His will— Not idly singing, as the foolish feign, But voicing forth their joy they work and sing; Doing His will, their ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... the views of providence. Indeed, nothing is more demonstrable than the impossibility in which the theologians find themselves, to form to their mind any idea whatever of the Divinity. Procopius, the first bishop of the Goths, says in the most solemn manner: "I esteem it a very foolish temerity to be disposed to penetrate into the knowledge of the nature of God;" and further on he acknowledges, "that he has nothing more to say of him, except that he is perfectly good. He who knoweth more, whether he be ecclesiastic or layman, has only to tell it." The weakness, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... amusements and institutions, the school sports, the school clubs, the school magazine, are patronised by the masters, but they are originated and managed by the boys. The play-hours of the boys are left to their several pleasures, whether physical or intellectual, nor have any foolish observations about the battle of Waterloo being won on the cricket-field, or such rather unmeaning oracles, yet succeeded in converting the boys' amusements into a compulsory gymnastic lesson. The boys ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... laugh at me for being so foolish, but I have become absurdly excited over this story. Scott was well called the 'Wizard of the North.' What a spell he weaves over his pages! When reading some of his descriptions of men and manners in those old chivalric times, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... "For such foolish vanity I ought to punish you severely, so that you would stop forever your senseless writings, saving me the trouble of coming to reprimand ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... though the daughter, with an anguish in her eyes that left little to be told, had herself revealed the truth. Her pride as well as her life, was linked with the pride and the beauty of her child. She had shared in her constant triumphs over all around her; and overlooking, as a fond, foolish mother is apt to do, all her faults of temper or of judgment, she had learned to behold nothing but her superiority. And now to see her fallen! a thing of scorn, which was lately a thing of beauty!—the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... owed him the amounts of more bills than he could number. Indeed he had kept no account of these double- fanged little documents; he had signed them whenever told to do so, and had even been so preposterously foolish as to sign them in blank. All he knew was that at the beginning of every quarter Mr. M'Ruen got nearly the half of his little modicum of salary, and that towards the middle of it he usually contrived to obtain an advance of some small, some ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... careworn, withered, and agitated face with painful attention; and then, as if relieved from some terrible apprehension, he heaved a bitter sigh, and murmured to himself—"No, no, there is no trace of that once well-known face. I knew it could not be. She is no more. It was a wild and foolish thought! but this ring—'tis strange! Woman, dost thou know me?" he asked aloud, with some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... as everything, is a total or substantive in itself, with its corresponding motion; for this is the principle of selfishness and war in nature—the principle which struggles everywhere towards decay and the dissolution of the larger wholes, and not in man only, though the foolish, unscientific man, who does not know how to track the phenomena of his own nature to their causes,—who has no bridge from the natural internal phenomena of his own consciousness into the continent of nature, may think that it is, and reason ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... wave. She felt like a bit of driftwood, cast up upon a summer shore where flowers and verdure smiled on every side and all was peace; but at the next tide, once more the waters would engulf her and drag her back to the sparkling, restless ocean. She smiled to herself at the foolish simile even as she thought of it. It was absurd to compare the gay life to which she had been accustomed to an engulfing ocean; but never mind, for once she would give her thoughts a free rein and be honest with herself, and acknowledge that the life she ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... quick-tempered," she soliloquized. "What if words should lead to blows,—if he should strike the old man! How foolish I was to let ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... Don't be foolish, woman! The money lies untouched at the factor's. But he wouldn't pay much for the meat and hide of Skjalda, not anywhere near enough to buy a good milking cow. He said the English on the trawlers don't set much store by cow's meat. The summer has been only so-so, and I'm sure we'll ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... But the Princess said, "Foolish man, it is here! And as for the golden avenue, that too is here, or all that was ever worth your winning." And thereupon she drew aside her cloak, shaking the snow from it; and when the folds parted and the firelight fell on her bosom, he saw a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... all the same old bunk," Miss Wheatly said bitterly; "I often wonder how they can speak so long and not make one practical suggestion. Wouldn't you like to help win the war? That sounds so foolish—of course we would like to win the war. It is like the old-fashioned evangelists who used to say, 'All who would like to go to heaven will please stand up.' Everybody ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... at the bold reply, Answer disdainfully, flouting my words: How should the listener at simple sixteen Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean Calmly predicting, "You will surely fly"— Fish one might vie with, but how be ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... poor father naturally thought more of his only son than of his daughters," is one of Charlotte's dreary comments on the tragedy. In early years he had himself written both prose and verse; and a foolish story invented long afterwards attributed to him some share in his sisters' novels, particularly in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. But Charlotte distinctly tells us that her brother never knew that his sisters ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... I did not and he went off alone. "Can't you really manage it?" he said. "Pray-a-do!" But I was obdurate, and it gives me pain now to think that I churlishly refused, though it is a false pathos to dwell on such things, and both foolish and wrong to credit the dead with remembering ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a navy at all. A few gunboats to guard the coast would be enough. All the consequences of the reduction of the navy at the close of the Revolution were forgotten in an instant. A penny-wise and pound-foolish spirit came over all the political leaders; and the Democratic party, then newly come into power, determined to endear itself to the hearts of the people by cutting down the expenses of the Government, and to this end they attacked ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... never yet asked in earnest, For what purpose you came into the world? What wonder ye wander and walk at random, seeing ye have not proposed to yourselves any certain scope and aim! It is great folly, you would not be so foolish in any petty business, but O how foolish men are in the main business! "The light of the body is the eye," if that be not light, "the whole body is full of darkness." If your intention be once right established, all your course will be orderly, but if you be dark and blind ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... his opinions seems to me a much finer man than the judge who sends him there, though I disagree with all the ideas of the Socialist and agree with some of those of the judge. But though he is fine, the Socialist is nevertheless foolish, for he suffers for what is untrue. If I knew what was true, I'd probably be willing to sweat and strive for it, and maybe even to die for it to the tune of bugle-blasts. But so far I have not ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... often felt a sense of shame for humanity when I have observed men and women staring through the bars at the splendid African cats in cages, and have also observed that their foolish stare is returned by the lion or tiger with a dull look of infinite boredom. Nor is it pleasant to see small boys pushing sticks through the safe bars, in an endeavour to irritate the royal captives. One remembers Browning's ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... addressing him, not in Arabic, but in the Zanzibar patois. The Sultan, after some conversation, turned to Badger, who, poor man, not being conversant with the patois, could only stand still in the dunce's cap which Burton, as it were, had clapped on him and look extremely foolish; while the bystanders nodded to each other and said, "Look at that fellow. He can't say two words. He's a fraud." Burton revelled in Badger's discomfiture; but a little later the two men were on good terms again; and when ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
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