"Ass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Versailles road, Lushington eschewed disguises, changed his lodgings again and appeared in clothes that fitted him. It was a great relief to look like a human being and a gentleman, even at the cost of calling himself an ass for having tried to look like something else. There was but one difficulty in the way of resuming his former appearance, and that lay in the loss of his beard, which would take some time to grow again, while its growth would involve retirement from civilisation during several ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... entered Jarnac in triumph. With him was brought the corpse of the Prince of Conde, tied to an ass's back, to be afterward exposed by a pillar of the house where Anjou lodged—the butt of the sneers and low wit of the soldiers.[663] In the first glow of exultation over a victory, the real credit of which belonged to Gaspard de Tavannes,[664] Anjou contemplated erecting a ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... myself behaved like an ass. I went and knelt down beside her so as to get quite close to her, and I began to comfort her. I told her not to mind about the references; that she might have me for a reference all the days of her life; that she should have the situation at Rockhold, where I would convey her and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Complexions, and are the best liking to 'em; and in all difficult Cases which happen, they still ask my advice, for giving which, I often get a double Fee. And if I stay at home, 'tis only to make an Ass of thee whilst thou'rt abroad; for where thou get'st one Shilling a Broad, I get Five at Home. If I shou'd go away, I am sure the Custom wou'd quickly drop off; for I am the Person most respected by the ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... on—they will wipe out these cursed Gilbert Islanders for us when the time comes. And wiped out they must be, especially that fellow Velo and the four white men as well. They are altogether too fond of my intelligent ass of a chief officer, and must ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... minute or two, Fanny's own eyes were detected wandering into the yard where Sydney still remained. "He is getting Fairy shod," she said in a soliloquising tone. Every one laughed,—the idea of shoeing a fairy was so ridiculous!—and some witticisms, about Bottom the Weaver, and his ass's head, were sported. It was evident that Socrates had no more chance this day, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... an ass at times, aren't you?" said Milton, kindly. "What I meant was, is the tea ready? If it is, you can scoot. If it isn't, ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... Webster, and I say that the 'Fugitive-Slave Law' is unconstitutional—is an outrage, and an imposition of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to your humanity and to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it. He is a humbug or an ass—an ass, if he believes such an infamous law to be constitutional, and if he does not believe it, he is a humbug and a scoundrel for ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... simple," he replied. "Haven't I told you, and haven't you seen for yourself, that I never lose an opportunity? More than that. It has been my rule in life either to make friends with the Mammon of Unrighteousness—he's a muddle-headed ass is Mammon, and you can steer clear of his unrighteousness if you're sharp enough—or else to cast my bread upon the waters in the certainty of finding it again after many days. In the case in question I took the latter course. I cast my bread a year or two ago upon ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... contrary," said Father Payne, "think that a man who always keeps his friends is almost always an ass!" He opened his mouth ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... 'The old ass has drunk himself into a state of dotage,' said Uriah, turning uglier than before, 'and it has been got from him ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... I did not believe him; I did, every word. I had simply been influenced by Rooks-by's suspicions. I had made an ass of myself over that business on board the Thames. The passage of Carles and his faithful Tomas had been arranged for by some agent of O'Brien in London, who was in communication with Ramon and Rio Medio. The same man had engaged Nichols, that Nova Scotian mate, an unscrupulous ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... After all, why not leave the diamond till daylight? He had been a silly ass to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a much sillier ass to leave his safe bedroom and come out to this wild and desolate spot all alone. ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... of the army believe in this plan for teaching chaplains their business. Having accepted a civilian parson as a volunteer, they dump him down in a camp without instruction or advice, without even so much as a small red handbook on field tactics to guide him. There he splutters about, makes an ass of himself in various ways, and either hammers out some plan for getting at his job by many bitter failures, or subsides into the kind of man who sits in the mess-room with his feet on the stove, reading novels and ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... might say, the symphonic composition of the play, which allots the parts as arbitrarily as in the Midsummer Night's Dream does Peter Quince, who says to highly respectable people: "You play the Lion, and you play the Ass," necessitates making a victim of a man who was a mediocre diplomat, but for a time, at least, a fairly good soldier. The author feels no compunction on this score. Stupidity, as Comus artlessly thinks, is not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... with staff. The queen took much delight in these my mad tricks, and commanded the carcass of this sheep to be given me, and I never eat meat with more relish or better appetite. Three days afterwards I killed an ass that used to bring water to the palace, because he would not say these words and be a Mahometan. One day I handled a Jew so very roughly, that I had near killed him. On another occasion I threw many stones at a person who called me a Christian clog, but he threw them back at me with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... made such strange fauns, satyrs, sylvan gods, little boys, and bacchanals, that it is a marvel to see the diversity of the bay horses and garments, and the variety of the goatlike features, and all with great grace and most vivid truth to nature. In one scene is Silenus riding on an ass, with many children, some supporting him, and some giving him drink; and throughout the whole is a feeling of the joy of life, produced by the great genius of Piero. And in truth, in all that there is to be seen by his hand, one recognizes ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... him in questioning surprise. "Well, what?" He caught the meaning of his friend. "Try not to be an ass, Gordon. Of course she knows the charge ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... short, who seems to be a blend Of Balaam's Ass, the bore's godsend And Mrs. Gamp's elusive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... ah! yes, you know—why, that is, I didn't know she had her maid with her (what an ass I was to think of a noblewoman travelling without one!) and couldn't, in course, refuse, when she asked me to let ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... moral suasion to bear upon her, if need be," I said. "Point out to her that the beating off of a piratical attack—Oh! hang it, what bosh I am talking, to be sure; as though there was the least likelihood of such a thing! The talk of that ass Kennedy seems to have hypnotised me as well as himself! But to return to what I was saying—if such an utterly improbable thing should happen, point out to her that fighting is men's work, and that the presence of women and children would be worse than useless at such a time. Let ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... one boy personates the Stag, and with his hands closed together, starts from his bounds after the other players. When he succeeds in touching one who is called the Ass, the first who gets to him rides him back to the bounds. The two then go out in the same manner, then three, and so on, till ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... asked that lord," Mr. Patten relates, "how he came so quietly by his horses from the justice's possession, whom the believing neighbourhood esteemed a most rigid Whig. I was answered thus, by that lord's repeating a saying of Oliver Cromwell's, 'that he could gain his ends with an ass-load of gold,' and left me to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... "You little ass!" said Saltash in a voice that somehow reassured. "Sit down there! Curl up if you like, and don't ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... observant; it became a thrilling thing to meet him in the court; one asked him to tea, one talked and told him everything. A week later, one seemed to have got to the end of it; the path came to a stop; there was not much in it after all, and presently he was rather an ass; he looked gloomily at one when one met him, but one was off on another chase; this idealising of people was rather a mistake; the pleasure was in the exploration, and there was very little to explore; it was better to have a comfortable set of friends with no nonsense; and yet that was dull too. ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mule and his antics, says: "Now, be it known, I never had any faith in, though possessed of abundant commiseration for, a mule. I always sympathized with Sterne in his sentimental reverie over a dead ass, but for a living one, I could never elevate my feeling of pity either into love or admiration. The mule in question, however, seemed to be possessed of gentle and kindly qualifications. He appeared to have reached that degree of culture that disarms viciousness and softens stubbornness ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... England,—states that women were to be drawn, in petit treason; as, indeed, do most, if not all, succeeding writers. They follow Coke, 3 Inst. 211; but neither the statutes referred to, nor the case cited from 12 Ass. 30, by the latter, support his statement. The report runs thus: "Alice de W, qui fuit de l'age de xiij ans, fuit arse per judgment, pur ceo que el'avoit tue sa Maistres, & pur tant ceo fuit adjudge treason, &c.;" and it appears that the case turned upon the question of accountability, ...
— The Trial and Execution, for Petit Treason, of Mark and Phillis, Slaves of Capt. John Codman • Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr.
... often behave at great crises with a ready-made solemnity. If they say little, it naturally follows that they say little that is foolish; their extreme lack of confidence leads them to think a good deal over the remarks that they are obliged to make; and, like Balaam's ass, they speak marvelously to the point if a miracle loosens their tongues. So M. de Bargeton bore himself like a man of uncommon sense and spirit, and justified the opinion of those who held that he was a philosopher ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... pay money back to him," Mostyn said, angrily. "I'd make an ass of myself, and admit my indebtedness to many others who happened to lose in that mill. His suit against me cost me several thousand dollars, and he has injured me in all sorts of ways with his slanderous tongue. He'll have to let up. I won't ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... hand for comforts and luxuries, as well as for necessities. He grasps not only the produces of his own and his neighbor's field and vineyard, but demands what lies across continents and seas. Instead of the ship, the camel, and the ass, we now have the ocean freighter or liner, and the flying train of cars: new forces, oil, steam, electricity, and water-power, do the carrying work of man. And hence trade has become Trade, and each trader is involved in the comfort, success, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... fickleness of woman! How cleverly she had deceived him, and what an ass he had been! She had been playing with him all the while, and as he paced the floor, revolving what course to pursue, he wondered how he could have been so simple. True, she was different from any woman he ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... the biggest ass this side of the jack trails, and the most conceited, Kenneth; but you're over on my side of the ring when you talk about the mechanical obstacles. What I'm worrying about now is the fact that I can't do two things at once. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... ass with an ivory comb? Give the beast thistles for provender. I do but yet angle with a silken fly, to see whether martins will nibble; and if I see that, why then I have worms for the nonce, and will ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... destiny, but hardly nearer to it than one is in the stalls to the stage. My moments of real concern for Dacres were mingled more with anger than with sorrow—it seemed inexcusable that he, with his infallible divining-rod for temperament, should be on the point of making such an ass of himself. Though I talk of the stage there was nothing at all dramatic to reward my attention, mine and Emily Morgan's. To my imagination, excited by its idea of what Dacres Tottenham's courtship ought to be, the attentions he paid to Cecily were most humdrum. He threw ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... but wyles to Palliate things, Can you believe me stupid, or an Ass? To think my Wife should meet a Man i' th' Night; Nay, more; a Man that was my seeming Friend; Yet taken in at Window privately! Nay, which was most, stay with him two full hours, And in a Room made proper by a Bed, And yet not Cuckold me; the thing's too plain, I do not doubt ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... he. "Balaam's ass has spoken. Nothing will astonish me after this. And where are the hundred thousand crowns which (so M. Camusot tells me) are here ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... course; but could you help hating the British ruling classes? They were your hereditary enemies—your school-book enemies, so to speak. And they were the ones you knew most about; since every American jack-ass that got rich quick and wanted to set himself up above his fellows would proceed to get English clothes and English servants and English bad manners. To the average plain American, the word English stood for privilege, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... strong hands against him, and the burning brands, and these he dreads for all his fury, and in the dawn he departeth with vexed heart; even so at that time departed Aias, vexed at heart, from among the Trojans, right unwillingly, for he feared sore for the ships of the Achaians. And as when a lazy ass going past a field hath the better of the boys with him, an ass that hath had many a cudgel broken about his sides, and he fareth into the deep crop, and wasteth it, while the boys smite him with cudgels, and feeble is the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... old gentleman, as he sat up in bed, and then began to dress; "he wouldn't go at my wish; but that girl over the way is playing with him, and he is too proud to stand it any longer, besides being mortified at making such an ass of himself. There's nothing wrong, Burdon. He has gone, ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... to her ability, and comforted him. He made her his returns and told her he did not despair, for he had met with a lucky omen, which was thus. When he was brought to Fannia's house, as soon as the gate was opened, an ass came running out to drink at a spring hard by, and giving a bold and encouraging look, first stood still before him, then brayed aloud and pranced by him. From which Marius drew his conclusion, and said, that the fates designed him safety, rather by sea ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... I stood there, feeling an awful ass. After all, they were at the bottom of the haunting! Do you see what a big fool it made me seem? I had no doubt but that they were some of Tassoc's rivals; and here I had been feeling in every bone that I had hit a real, bad, genuine Case! And then, you know, there came the memory of hundreds ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... them, climbing weeds twenty times his own height and jumping from their summits—and finally leaving him in the middle of the road to be confiscated by any other fool of an ant that wanted him. I measured the ground which this ass traversed, and arrived at the conclusion that what he had accomplished inside of twenty minutes would constitute some such job as this—relatively speaking—for a man; to wit: to strap two eight-hundred-pound horses together, carry them eighteen hundred feet, mainly over (not around) ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... creature, browsing on nettles and living by chance; the worldling is like a beast of burden, now ill-used and over-worked, now fatted, stalled, and richly caparisoned. AEsop might well have described their relative happiness in a fable about the wild ass and the mule. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... pretend to find a deserting English sailor. With the Treaty of Ghent and cod-headed commissioners and a Congress that wouldn't know a ship from a bread barge the country's going to hell on greased ways! I've said it a thousand times and any man not a complete ass knows that you can't run a government without a strong ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... show teeth and claws. Several executions had taken place after reiterated offences. A horse was seen, for the first time, to take his bit in his teeth and rush through the streets of Quiquendone; an ox was observed to precipitate itself, with lowered horns, upon one of his herd; an ass was seen to turn himself ever, with his legs in the air, in the Place Saint Ernuph, and bray as ass never brayed before; a sheep, actually a sheep, defended valiantly the cutlets within him from ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... "Don't be an ass, Baron!" said Mirliflor, seizing the cap and stepping into the car. "Where her life is at stake I have no scruples in using anything whatever. But I've no experience in driving ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... know!"—She now retorted with some humor, yet very temperately, "Take care, captain: I may mistake you another time!" And so she hurried past, taking huge strides, without looking round. At once my fellow- traveller struck his forehead with both his fists: "Oh, what an ass I am!" exclaimed he, "what an old ass I am! Now, you see whether I am right or not." And then, in a very violent manner, he went on with his usual sayings and opinions, in which this case still more confirmed him. I can not and would not repeat ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... present, most nearly fulfils all these conditions is that of the series of extinct animals which culminates in the Horses; by which term I mean to denote not merely the domestic animals with which we are all so well acquainted, but their allies, the ass, zebra, quagga, and the like. In short, I use "horses" as the equivalent of the technical name Equidae, which is applied to the whole group of existing ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... insects. A gentleman, by name Walcott, from Barbadoes, lived high up the river Demerara. While I was passing a day or two at his house, the vampires sucked his son a boy of about ten or eleven years old, some of his fowls and his jack-ass. The youth showed me his forehead at daybreak: the wound was still bleeding apace, and I examined it with minute attention. The poor ass was doomed to be a prey to these sanguinary imps of night: he looked like misery steeped in vinegar. I saw, by the numerous sores on his body, and by his apparent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... supernatural things done at several times by the Prophets & Saints; so was the voice of the Ass speaking to Balaam, contrary to the common course of Nature; as also Joseph's Interpretation of Dreams. And so God by his Angels preserves us oftentimes from infinite Evils, and delivers us out of manifold Dangers, impossible ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... the spider bit me, but Ah Wee got it bad in the side an' tumbled about like anything. W'isky was just weigh-in' me out one w'en 'e saw the spider fastened on my finger; then 'e knew he'd made a jack ass of 'imself. He threw away the axe and got down on 'is knees alongside of Ah Wee, who gave a last little kick and opened 'is eyes—he had eyes like mine—an' puttin' up 'is hands drew down W'isky's ugly head and held it there w'ile 'e stayed. That wasn't long, for a ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours. I'll apologize to the pair of them for me ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... a girl, tears would have blinded his eyes; but being what he was, he merely muttered in anger against himself, "Hang it all, what a wretched ass I am," and turning his back on the sea, made his way as fast as he could into ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sat again on the hard bunk that, aside from the single chair, was the only furniture in the small cell. "Ass well ass coot pe expectet. I ket ferry little exercisse. I ... how iss it set? ... I ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... true, "that there is no place like England," for men who are in "easy circumstances," and who therefore think no more of direct or indirect taxation, and of those multitudinous burthens which highly-civilized life imposes, than a besom-maker's ass does of the load under which it daily journeys. But how many thousands are there (children of sad parents — Toil and Sorrow) who find their utmost efforts scarcely sufficient to keep them out of the debtor's prison! Continual ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... rocky road; a great city shining in the morning sunlight across a narrow valley; a crowd of shouting peasants waving palm branches in their rustic hands; in the centre the meek carpenter's Son, sitting upon the poor robes which alone draped the ass's colt, the tears upon His cheeks, and His lamenting heard above the Hosannahs, as He looked across the glen and said, 'If thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace!' That is the fulfilment, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the sacrifice. I was the center of the drama. I was Fate. I was a romantic-minded young ass, and the situation flattered my generous conceit. I was tossing away my life, you see, with a grand gesture, to help my friend. I was dying for my friend's sake. My imagination gave my death nobility. I imagined Newman and the lady remembering me sadly all their ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... married Penelope and was very happy in his wife and child, had no disposition to embark in such a troublesome affair. He therefore hung back and Palamedes was sent to urge him. When Palamedes arrived at Ithaca, Ulysses pretended to be mad. He yoked an ass and an ox together to the plough and began to sow salt. Palamedes, to try him, placed the infant Telemachus before the plough, whereupon the father turned the plough aside, showing plainly that he was no madman, and after that could no longer refuse to fulfil his promise. Being now himself ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... emanations sent out by man after death or during the whole course of life. The hidden meaning of the passage from Manu, where we read that "he who slays a Brahman enters into the body of a dog, a bear, an ass, a camel, &c.," does not apply to the human Ego, but only to the atoms of his body, i.e., to the lower triad[90] and its fluidic emanations, as H. P. Blavatsky ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... Military Landing Officer watching the military land. If this is so, the work may be so simple that, once a man has satisfied the very rigid social test to be passed by all aspirants to so distinguished a position, he must simply be a silly ass if he doesn't automatically become a great man, after a walk or two up and down the quay. I repeat, I know nothing whatever of the calling of A.M.L.O., and I could not tell you without inquiry whether it is an ancient and honourable profession or an unscrupulous trade very jealously watched by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... without some qualms, the inhabitants made trial of the flesh of a horse accidentally killed. Next an ass, and then the mules, of which there was a considerable number, were brought to the shambles. The butchers were now ordered to sell this new kind of meat, and a maximum price was fixed. For a fortnight ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... photograph, and the paper were of course meant for the other woman, and she has got whatever was meant for Rose. Now if the thing that was meant for Rose was the will, Madame Danterre has got it now unless she has had the nerve to destroy it." He felt as if he had been an ass till this moment. Then he went to see Mr. Murray, Junior, who listened with profound attention until he had finished what he had to ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... 137) gives a Sinhalese story, with three variants, which is definitely connected with our tales, and confirms my belief that the "False-Proofs" cycle is native to southern India. In Parker's main story the false proofs are five,—ass (voice), two winnowing-trays (ears), two bundles of creepers (testicles?), a tom-tom (eye), and two elephant tusks (teeth). In variant b the false proofs are drum (roar), deer-hide rope (hair), pair ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... going, she arose to take her leave. He went with her to the door, and wrung her hand nervously, bidding her in heart a final farewell, for when they met again a great gulf would be between them,—a gulf he had helped to dig, and which he could not ass. Edith had intended to ask old Judy where Arthur was going, without, however, having much hope of success: for, since the conversation concerning Nina, Judy had been wholly non-committal, plainly showing that she had been trained for the occasion, but changed ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... of the spirits, it will sink almost through every thing it is put into, and seems to be of the same nature as the water mentioned by Quintus Curtius, which says the historian, could be contained in nothing but in the hoof, or (as the Oxford Manuscript has it) the skull of an ass. The thermometer is marked according to the following figure, which I set down at length, not only to give my reader a clear idea of it, but also to fill up ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... seemed to him an ass just then. Subtle study! She was a wild flower. A creature it did you good to look ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... restaurant; conversation general; almost everyone in uniform. Still the old subjects—How long will it last? Why does not Gambetta write more clearly? How sublime we are; what a fool everyone else is. Food scanty, but peculiar. At Voisins to-day the bill of fare was ass, horse, and English wolf from the Zoological Garden. A Scotchman informed me that this latter was a fox of his native land, and patriotically gorged himself with it. I tried it, and not being a Scotchman, found it horrible, and fell back upon the ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... evening in the company of the cowardly Falstaff than of the bold Hotspur. If it were not for sack, villainous sack, and a few spots upon his front, you would go far to find a better companion than the fat old Knight. Bob Acres was not much for valor and he made an ass of himself when he went to fight a duel, yet one could have sat ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... ass, woman!" answered the Moor. "Who is talking of such a thing now? You know very well that you please me and that you are useful to me. The question now is whether you have ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... him harm by violence, and that he has the power to incline the hearts of men whither he wills. For in that same city he freely did whatever he willed to do; and when he sent his disciples thither, and commanded them that they should loose the ass and the colt, and bring them to him, and said that no man would forbid them, he accomplished that which he said, although he was not ignorant of the conspiracy against himself. Of which he saith to his disciples whom he sends, "Go ye into the castle over against ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... his eyes painted red, and without beard or moustaches: they began to clap their hands and shout at him, and some of them ran after him and lashed his back with leather straps. They then took him and set him upon an ass which they met by chance, and carried him through the town exposed to the laughter of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... devastations of Tiglathpilezer. The prophecy is throughout full of the politics of that day. No part of it has the most remote or imaginable[4] similarity to the historical life of Jesus, except that he once rode into Jerusalem on an ass; a deed which cannot have been peculiar to him, and which Jesus moreover appears to have planned with the express[5] purpose of assimilating himself to the lowly king here described. Yet such an isolated act is surely a carnal and beggarly fulfilment. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... are described usually as riding together in a chariot which is sometimes said to be drawn by horses, and this would suit their name; but more often the poets say that their chariot is drawn by birds, such as eagles or swans, and sometimes even by a buffalo or buffaloes, or by an ass. I do not see how we can escape from this difficulty except by supposing that popular imagination in regard to this matter varied from very early times, but preferred to think of them as having horses. At any rate they are very ancient gods, for the people of Iran also ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... you intend to do with him, is it?" retorted Francois. "Well, Lemaitre, I always knew you for an ass, but, unless you had told me so with your own lips, I would never have believed you to be such an ass as to sell a man for five hundred dollars when you can just as easily get a thousand for him. Yet you call me fool and idiot! ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... me,—"Jehan! Jehan! cessat doctorum doctrina, discipulorum disciplina. Jehan, be wise, Jehan, be learned, Jehan, pass not the night outside of the college without lawful occasion and due leave of the master. Cudgel not the Picards: noli, Joannes, verberare Picardos. Rot not like an unlettered ass, quasi asinus illitteratus, on the straw seats of the school. Jehan, allow yourself to be punished at the discretion of the master. Jehan go every evening to chapel, and sing there an anthem with verse and orison to Madame the glorious Virgin Mary."—Alas! what excellent ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... justice, either, you ass! Could you not perceive by our appearance that we were people of quality, and ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... David, or purchase his birthright as Jacob did Esau, if you have the power you terrorize and shoot him into compliance. That is what the political enemies of the Afro-American have done and are doing, but patient as the ass and with the faith of Job, which passes all understanding, he sticks to his principle of self-interest and waits; and the good proverb says, "All things come to him who waits." I believe it. And ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... advice, and stayed for the most part outside the town, removing his tent from place to place, and sailing up and down the Euphrates. Besides this, he was disturbed by many other prodigies. A tame ass fell upon the biggest and handsomest lion that he kept, and killed him by a kick. And one day after he had undressed himself to be anointed, and was playing at ball, just as they were going to bring his clothes again, the young men who played with him perceived a man clad in the king's robes, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... mountain is an elongated ridge, which has been compared to the back of an ass. It was perfectly manifest that we were dominant over all other mountains; as far as the eye could range Mont Blanc had no competitor. The summits which had looked down upon us in the morning were now far ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... wooden legs. I immediately sought the boss gymnaster and related the manner in which I had been introduced to his elevating establishment. I told him I had come there neither to be made a horse of by one nor an ass of by another. He pledged his word that the like should not occur again, and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... only he must bathe in the waters of the Pactolus, the sands of which ever after were found mixed with gold; appointed umpire at a musical contest between Pan and Apollo, he preferred the pipes of the former to the lyre of the latter, who thereupon awarded him a pair of ass-ears, the which he concealed with a cap, but could not hide them from his barber, who could not retain the secret, but whispered it into a hole in the ground, around which sprang up a forest of reeds, which as the wind passed through them told the tale ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... In the ass, mule, and plethoric horses acute glanders usually terminates by lobular pneumonia. In other cases the general symptoms may subside. The symptoms of pneumonia gradually disappear, the temperature lowers, the pulse becomes slower, the ulcers heal, leaving small, indurated ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the parents differ too widely from one another, so we cannot get our idea of-we will say a horse-to conjure up to our minds the idea of any animal more unlike a horse than a pony is; nor can we get a well-defined idea of a combination between a horse and any animal more remote from it than an ass, zebra, or giraffe. We may, indeed, make a statue of a flying horse, but the idea is one which cannot be made plausible to any but ignorant people. So "human flesh" may vary a little from "human flesh" without undue violence being done to our reason and to the right use of language, but it cannot ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... our dainty age Cannot endure reproof, Make not thyself a page To that strumpet the stage; But sing high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof.{8} ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... smoothly brushed down from a central part, Mr. Tempest's iron-gray hair was greasily wild—a disarray of romantic ringlets. Eshwell was inclined to fat; Tempest was gaunt and had the hollow, burning eye that bespeaks the sentimental ass. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... "Karr'aynan." The Arabs say, "Allah cool thine eye," because tears of grief are hot and those of joy cool (Al-Asma'i); others say the cool eye is opposed to that heated by watching; and Al-Hariri (Ass. xxvii.) makes a scorching afternoon "hotter than the tear of a childless mother." In the burning climate of Arabia coolth and refrigeration are equivalent ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... he went to his garret bare, Thrilling with rapture, hope, despair. Swift he gazed in his looking-glass, Made a grimace and murmured: "Ass!" Seized his scissors and fiercely sheared, Severed his buccaneering beard; Grabbed his hair, and clip! clip! clip! Off came a bunch with every snip. Ran to a tailor's in startled state, Suits a dozen commanded straight; Coats and overcoats, pants in pairs, Everything that ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... a new train of ideas came into my head. I had a vague idea, though not a belief, that a cock and cunt, were not made for pissing only. Fred treated me as a simpleton in these matters, and was always calling me an ass; I have quite a painful recollection of my inferiority to him, in such things, and of begging him to instruct me. "They make children that way," said Fred. "You come up and we will ask the old nurse, where children come from, and she'll say 'out of the parsley-bed,' but it's ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... wonder at, perhaps a Kew.' Nor rest we here, but, at our magic call, Monkeys shall climb our trees, and lizards crawl; Huge dogs of Tibet bark in yonder grove, Here parrots prate, there cats make cruel love; In some fair island will we turn to grass (With the queen's leave) her elephant and ass. Giants from Africa shall guard the glades, Where hiss our snakes, where sport our Tartar maids; Or, wanting these, from Charlotte Hayes we bring Damsels, alike adroit to sport and sting. Now to our lawns of dalliance and delight, Join we the groves of horror ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Chalier are to be appeased; the Republic, maddened to the Sibylline pitch, has bared her right arm. Behold! Representative Fouche, it is Fouche of Nantes, a name to become well known; he with a Patriot company goes duly, in wondrous Procession, to raise the corpse of Chalier. An Ass, housed in Priest's cloak, with a mitre on its head, and trailing the Mass-Books, some say the very Bible, at its tail, paces through Lyons streets; escorted by multitudinous Patriotism, by clangour as ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... shall be glad to see him.—[Exit SERVANT.] If you are not acquainted with his lordship, madam, you will be entertained with his character. Aman. Now it moves my pity more than my mirth to see a man whom nature has made no fool be so very industrious to pass for an ass. Love. No, there you are wrong, Amanda; you should never bestow your pity upon those who take pains for your contempt: pity those whom nature abuses, never those who abuse nature. Enter LORD FOPPINGTON. Lord Fop. Dear Loveless, I am your most humble ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... with rage, we might believe to be animated with the soul of a lion. The coward and runaway, afraid where no fear is, may be likened to the timid deer. He who is sunk in ignorance and stupidity lives like a dull ass. He who is light and inconstant, never holding long to one thing, is for all the world like a bird. He who wallows in foul and unclean lusts is sunk in the pleasures of a filthy hog. So it comes to pass that he who by forsaking righteousness ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... "Don't be an ass, James. Of course I do. You've had the brazen audacity to attempt to work off on Eva the game you played on Margaret. But you've made a mistake. You've forgotten to ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... At any rate I've enough to start on as a married man, enough to give you a decent outfit and your passage out here and have a honeymoon before we start work on our future home. Darling Vivie! Do think about it. You'd never regret it. I'm a very different Frank to the silly ass you knew in the old Haslemere days. Now here's a five pound note to cover the cost of a full cable to say "yes," and when you'll be ready to start. When I get your answer—somehow I feel it'll be "yes"—I'll ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... the man stopped both his beating and swearing, and stood looking half scared out of his wits. The crowd, too, looked thunderstruck; and presently one fellow said, 'It's the story of Balaam and his ass over again. There must be an angel somewhere round,' glancing from side to side as he spoke, in a way that almost made me laugh, angry as I was at the human brute, or rather the inhuman scoundrel, who had been treating the poor ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... there was an eloquent silence in the hall, till at last a loud, accurate and suggestive "Ma-a-a-a!" from Speug relieved the feelings of the delighted school, and the unpopular prize-winner left the platform amid the chorus of the farmyard—cows, sheep, horses, dogs, cats and a triumphant ass all uniting to do him honour. It was their day, and Bulldog gave them their rights, provided they did not continue too long, and every boy believed that Bulldog had the same ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... extent, guarded from the intrusions of mere left-handed imbecility. But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery. And so we have again and again the old story of La Fontaine's ass, who pats his nose to the flute, and, finding that he elicits some sound, exclaims, "Moi, aussie, je joue de la flute"—a fable which we commend, at parting, to the consideration of any feminine reader who is in danger of adding ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... from the cart. "Oh, get out of the way, you ass!" she said, pushing him aside. "Can't you see they've been turned out? Is it your husband that's chucked you out?" she ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... another. They say, 'Don't lift the poor brute out, but throw in a handful of fodder, and something for him to lie upon, and let him be till next day.' A remarkable way of making 'thine ox and thine ass' keep the Sabbath! There is a delicacy of expression in the question; the owner of 'one sheep' would be more solicitous about it than if he had a hundred; and our Shepherd looks on all the millions of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows, The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... taking of that step that was to make or mar her life? The Woman is awakened, and, starting from her sleep, catches blindly at what first her newly opened eyes light upon. It is a spell, a witchery, ruled by chance alone, inexplicable—a fairy queen enamored of a clown with ass's ears. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... sea And not know my John? I might as well have asked some landsman Yonder down in the town. There's not an ass in all the parish But he knows ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... to be versed in theology—so he had declared—and at the memory of these words of his the epithet "ass," self applied, passed his lips. "You want a parson who will stick to his last, not too high or too low or too broad or too narrow, who has intellect without too much initiative . . . and will not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... patches on the knees. Was there ever such a picture of savage good nature and childishness as the giant Willem swung the great bamboo haft of his whip above his head, and chided or exhorted his team straining in the drift! "Come up, Buller," to a favourite ass. "Kruger, you scellum," to a refractory lead, while the great thong cracked like a pistol as the leather hissed between the culprit's ears without touching a hair ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... which our Duke was held? Any man is glad to be seen escorting a very pretty woman. He thinks it adds to his prestige. Whereas, in point of fact, his fellow-men are saying merely "Who's that appalling fellow with her?" or "Why does she go about with that ass So-and-So?" Such cavil may in part be envy. But it is a fact that no man, howsoever graced, can shine in juxtaposition to a very pretty woman. The Duke himself cut a poor figure beside Zuleika. Yet not one of all the undergraduates felt she could ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... 'Awful ass if you do,' cried Augustus, who had a knack of overhearing what was not intended ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... and he alit out of a chair and leapt upon two horses, and the one said to the other: Go we seek that we shall not find. And him thought that a man beat Sir Launcelot, and despoiled him, and clothed him in another array, the which was all full of knots, and set him upon an ass, and so he rode till he came to the fairest well that ever he saw; and Sir Launcelot alit and would have drunk of that well. And when he stooped to drink of the water the water sank from him. And when Sir Launcelot saw that, he turned and went thither as the head came from. And in the meanwhile ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... Harry Thurston Peck) Seventh Century B.C. The Fox and the Lion The Belly and the Members The Ass in the Lion's Skin The Satyr and the Traveler The Ass Eating Thistles The Lion and the other Beasts The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing The Ass and the Little Dog The Countryman and the Snake The Country Mouse and the The Dog and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... shown that a man may be absolutely honest and yet practical; a reformer by instinct and a wise politician; brave, bold and uncompromising, and yet not a wild ass of the desert. The exhibition made by the professional independents in voting against you for no reason on earth except that somebody else was voting for you, is a lesson that is worth its cost." [Footnote: "Autobiography," ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... be it spoken, the city's an ass So long to the public to let their gold run, To keep the King out; but 'tis now come to pass, I am sure they will ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... "Don't be an ass, George," said the Big Business Man. "Just because you don't understand, doesn't mean there is no sense ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... example, there is a proverb in German: "Quand le cheval est sellé il faut le monter;" in French there is a proverb: "Quand le vin est tiré il faut le boire." Well, a translator who would translate quand le cheval, etc., by quand le vin, etc., is an ass, and does not know his business. In translation only a strictly classical language should be used; no word of slang, or even word of modern origin should be employed; the translator's aim should be never to dissipate the illusion of an exotic. If I were translating the "Assommoir" ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... else! But, of course, incurable!... He remembered all her crimes now. How she had been late in dressing for their first dinner. Her inexplicable vanishing from the supper-party, never explained, but easily explicable now, perhaps. And so on and so on.... Simpleton! Ass!) ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... a confounded ass. I know about some of these stables, a man is a fool if you like who bets and doesn't know." He shut up his betting-book with a bang, and I told him the only tale ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... made a difference for me when I was in college, and that the yardstick came between me and society. I was an ass for thinking anything about it. Though I did n't really care, much. I never liked society, and I did like boats and horses. I thought of a profession, once. But it would n't work. I've been round the world twice, and I've done nothing but enjoy myself since I left ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... yes!' groaned the Aristocrat 'I thought you were coming to that next. Take our landed property, do—I wish you joy of it! What with all your Communistic legislation and bad harvests, and backing good things that don't come off—like an ass as I was—by Jove, I feel disposed to quit the whole business and compete for a Mandarin's Button in China. It's the only country for a British Aristocracy to live comfortably in and be properly appreciated, and you can't come sneaking about ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... were hushed, water ceased to flow and the wind was stilled. But when the child Jesus was born all nature burst into new life; trees put forth green leaves, grass sprang up and bright flowers bloomed. To animals was granted the power of human speech and the ox and the ass knelt in their stalls in adoration of the infant Saviour. Then it was that the shepherds abiding in the field with their flocks heard the angels praising God, and kings of the Orient watching in their "far country" saw ablaze in the ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... said, "now that I have thought it all over, that you are quite right, and that I have been behaving like an ass, so I shall set to work again and try and make up the lost time. I have only six months longer, for Easter is the time when Mr. Simmonds said that I should be old enough, and he will write to the lord ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't stand there like an ass, man. Get to ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... title from the Hartwell Catalogue of Law Books. I suppose it is what is elsewhere called the "Commentary on the Ethics of Aristotle," printed in 1489.[13] Buridan[14] (died about 1358) is the creator of the famous ass which, as Burdin's[15] ass, was current in Burgundy, perhaps is, as a vulgar proverb. Spinoza[16] says it was a jenny ass, and that a man would not have been so foolish; but whether the compliment is paid to human or to masculine character does ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the closing of the window, which was soon dark. Then he crept down to the farm wall, and round the corner of it to that outer cart-shed, where he had bound up his bleeding hand on the night when Halsey—silly ass!—had seen the ghost. He did not dare to smoke lest spark or smell might betray him. Sitting on a heap of sacks in a sheltered corner, his hands hanging over his knees, he spent some long time brooding and pondering—conscious all the while of the hidden and silent life of ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Lady Greendale is not in any way a marrying woman. I am not like Mr. Pickwick, afraid of widows, and have perfect confidence in my power to resist temptation; but at the same time it makes all the difference in the world to one's comfort. I am not ass enough to suppose that Lady Greendale would even dream for a moment of setting her cap at a Colonel on half pay, but if a woman is in the marrying line she always expects a certain amount of what you may call delicate attention. It is her daily ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... he found Emma reading. From that moment—to his own surprise, and according to his own statement—he became an ass! The metamorphosis was complete. Ovid, had he been alive, would have rejoiced in it! He blushed more than a poor boy caught in his first grievous offence. The very straightforwardness of his character helped to make ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne |
