"Folly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Let Folly smile, to view the names Of thee and me in friendship twin'd, Yet virtue will have greater claims To love, ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... her breast heaving under its corselet of iron, her arm wielding the mightiest enginery that was ever forged into the thunderbolts of war,—her triumph will be grand enough without her setting fire to the stubble with which the folly of the Old World has girt its thrones. No deeper humiliation could be asked for our foreign enemies than the spectacle of our triumph. If we have any legal claims against the accomplices of pirates, they will be presented, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... I hoped you would see the folly of ramming your head into the lion's mouth by going back to Agpur ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... thirty per cent, and being too prudent to hold the rest on any terms, he conveyed it at once as a benefaction in trust to the Plutorian Orphans' and Foundlings' Home; while the purchaser of Mr. Fyshe's stock, learning too late of his folly, rushed for his lawyers to have the shares conveyed as a gift ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... you know her. She took my wife from me, Mr. Acton. Heaven only knows what the hold was that she had over poor Mira. She encouraged her to set me at defiance and eventually to leave me. She was answerable for all the scandalous folly and extravagance of poor Mira's life in Paris—spare me the telling of the story. She left her at last to die alone and uncared for. I reached my wife to find her dying of a fever from which Lady Carwitchet and her crew had fled. She was raving in delirium, and died without ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... from his loft to the pavement. Doubtless he was suddenly attacked by his malady, and had hidden himself in the hay, as he was accustomed to do, in order not to frighten and distress his family. Thus ended, in a tragic way, a life as strange as himself, a mixture of gloom and folly, of horror and hilarity, amid which his heart remained always kind and his ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... asking about Hinduism, "Surely if the idolatry, and folly, and indecency, which we know exists in the religion as it now is could be cleared away, we should find remaining some deep philosophic thoughts and mystical poetical ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... Madame DE ST. GALMIER, that if Kings could but know the folly of their subjects they would hesitate at nothing. Mr. JEREMY evidently knows thoroughly how stupendously cabbage-headed his readers are, for he never hesitates to put forward the most astounding and muddy-minded theories. For instance, he asks us this week ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... against his own nephews? That of Harold Godwinsson, the usurper? That of the tanner's grandson against any man? Ah that he had been in England! Ah that he had been where he might have been,—where he ought to have been but for his own folly,—high in power in his native land,—perhaps a great earl; perhaps commander of all the armies of the Danelagh. And bitterly he cursed his youthful sins as he rode to and fro almost daily to the port of Calais, asking for news, and getting ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... tried to keep the coals at the right ardour for toasting. Jeff had stayed in the house, walking uneasily about, and at a little after ten he came out of his chair as if he suddenly recognised the folly of staying ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... whole matter was brushed aside by Helen Yardely, though now and again through the day, it recurred to her mind as a rather unpleasant episode; and she found herself wondering how so fine a man as Stane could stoop to the folly of which many men in ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... kind. The poet struck a note of universal truth in that immortal line. There is endless consolation in the knowledge that heart has answered to heart; that the fond futile love to which Fate forbids a happy issue has not been lavished on a dumb, irresponsive idol. If there has been madness, folly, it has not been one-sided foolishness. He too has loved; he too must suffer. Bind Eloisa with what vows, surround her with what walls you will, even in her despair there is one golden thought: her Abelard has loved her—will love on till ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... shame and remorse, the unhappy man slunk back to his hermitage, miserable and degraded, bitterly lamenting his folly and infatuation, but resolved to atone for it by deep ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... Poland to claim his Crown; and, as Henry the Third of France, he filled the country with the scandals of that folly, licentiousness, and weakness of mind, which were fostered by his mother, Catherine de Medicis, in order to retain the power she coveted, completely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... memorial of our folly!" exclaimed the one who was called Simon. "We shall have to begin the world anew. Captain, where do you propose landing us? The sooner we begin ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... are doing it daily, and so may you. Only make the resolution, Henry. Only determine to break these fetters, and you are free. Let the time past, wherein you have wrought folly, and your family suffered more than words can express, suffice. Only will it, and there will be a bright future ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... Sergius, "you will only have to imagine him a fool. So be it, and let the cost of his life pay for his folly." ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... a flurried defence of his recent outrageous behavior, to which Miss Garavel endeavored to listen with distant composure. But he was so desperately in earnest, so anxious to make light of the matter, so eager to expose all his folly and have done with it, that he must have been funnier than he knew. In the midst of his narrative the girl's eyes showed an encouraging gleam, and when he described his interview with Torres and Heran their surprise and dramatic indignation, she ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... it I can never keep you to that bankruptcy? It looks as if you avoided it," said I—for a man in my situation, with unpardonable folly. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... connection, and not without amusement. What would they be like together? How would Vere's divine innocence receive the amiable seductions of the Marchesino? Artois, in fancy, could see his friend Doro for once completely disarmed by a child. Vere's innocence did not spring from folly, but was backed up by excellent brains. It was that fact which made it so beautiful. The innocence and the brains together might well read Doro a pretty little lesson. And Vere after the lesson—would she be changed? Would ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... exclaimed; "what carelessness! what folly! I should have thought they would have been afraid to leave so vast an amount ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... might have made it certain that she would be much more agreeable as a friend than as a wife. She had become an intellectuelle quite prematurely—at an age, in fact, when she might better have been thinking of other things than the inwardness of her soul, or the folly of religious belief. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... and in their meeting with her father's there was much; much that Mr. Randolph felt without stopping to analyze, and that made his own face as suddenly sober as her own. There was no folly in that quick grave look of question or appeal; it seemed to carry the charge in ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... pretendest thy species can never disappear; that thou shalt be exempted from the universal law, that wills all shall experience change! Alas! In thy actual being, art not thou submitted to continual alterations? Thou, who in thy folly, arrogantly assumest to thyself the title of KING OF NATURE! Thou, who measurest the earth and the heavens! Thou, who in thy vanity imaginest, that the whole was made, because thou art intelligent! There requires but a very slight accident, a single atom ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... she said, "Upon me, my lord, upon me be the blame. Only let your servant speak to you, and listen to her words. Let not my lord pay any attention to that mean man Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. 'Fool' is his name and folly rules him. But your servant did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. Now, my lord, as surely as Jehovah lives and as you live, since Jehovah has kept you from murder and from avenging yourself by your ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... you talk like that," said his mother. "You boys both deserve being taken to task for your reckless folly. You forget entirely the agony you caused me when I heard of what ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... very irritating, when you have heard it, which Margaret never had. She was otherwise ignorant. She did not know that a sage wrote a book in praise of folly. But she acted as though she knew it by heart. She believed, as many of us do believe, that love confers the right to run a fence around the happy mortals for whom we care. It is a very astounding belief. Margaret, who believed in many wonderful things, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the English advancing westward, the Sulpician priest from Montreal, Abbe Picquet, zealously builds a fort straight north of Oswego, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, to keep the Iroquois loyal to France. Picquet calls his fort "Presentation." His enemies call it "Picquet's Folly." It is known to-day as Ogdensburg. Look at the map. France's frontier line is guarded by forts that stand like sentinels at the gateways of all waters leading to the interior,—Ogdensburg, Kingston, Toronto, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... surprising how many of this illustrious family have peopled the world, and they can boast of many authors' names which figure on their genealogical tree—men who might have lived happy, contented, and useful lives were it not for their insane cacoethes scribendi. And hereby they show their folly. If only they had been content to write plain and ordinary commonplaces which every one believed, and which caused every honest fellow who had a grain of sense in his head to exclaim, "How true that is!" all would have been well. But ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... a fool," said Jim. "There—I can't say more than that, Ju. And I've paid for my folly. And, dearest, I'm so bitterly sorry! I can't explain it. I don't understand it myself—I only know that I'd give ten years off the end of my life to have the past five to live over again. Forgive me, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... dawn was no paler than the boy's face—no more desolate. Trouble was his, the same old trouble that has dogged the trail of folly since time began; and Selwyn ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Clarence awoke, cleared and strengthened. His resolution had been made. He would leave the rancho that morning, to enter the world again and seek his fortune elsewhere. This was only right to HER, whose future it should never be said he had imperiled by his folly and inexperience; and if, in a year or two of struggle he could prove his right to address her again, he would return. He had not spoken to her since they had parted in the garden, with the grim truths of the lawyer ringing in his ears, but he ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... pervades all time, get rid of death, and time will disappear. You desire to make me king, and it is difficult to resist the offices of love; but as a disease is difficult to bear without medicine, so neither can I bear this weight of dignity; in every condition, high or low, we find folly and ignorance, and men carelessly following the dictates of lustful passion; at last, we come to live in constant fear; thinking anxiously of the outward form, the spirit droops; following the ways of men, the mind resists the right; but, the conduct of the wise is not so. The sumptuously ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... a twofold wisdom and a twofold folly. For there is a wisdom according to God, which has human or worldly folly annexed to it, according to 1 Cor. 3:18, "If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise." But there is another wisdom ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... what sanctuary? From earthquake shocks there is no sheltering cell! —Is this what men call conquest? Must it close As historied conquests do, or be annulled By modern reason and the urbaner sense?— Such issue none would venture to predict, Yet folly 'twere to nourish foreshaped fears And suffer in conjecture and in deed.— If verily our country be dislimbed, Then at the mercy of his domination The face of earth will lie, and vassal kings Stand waiting on himself the Overking, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... in the check to his own schemes, incensed at the suddenness of Chilcote's recall, and still more incensed at his own folly in not having anticipated it, was oblivious for the moment of both her movement and her words. Then, quite abruptly, they obtruded themselves upon him, breaking through his egotism with something of the sharpness of pain following ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... enow that all mankind At first were formed for perfect bliss; Our forefather that boon resigned, All for an apple's sake, I wis; We fell condemned, for folly blind, To suffer sore in hell's abyss; But One a remedy did find Lest we our hope of heaven should miss. He suffered on the cross for this, Red blood ran from His crowned brow; He saved us by that pain of His, For the grace of ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... in my charge To bring. But since thy will implies, that more Our true condition I unfold at large, Mine is not to deny thee thy request. This mortal ne'er hath seen the farthest gloom. But erring by his folly had approach'd So near, that little space was left to turn. Then, as before I told, I was dispatch'd To work his rescue, and no way remain'd Save this which I have ta'en. I have display'd Before him all the regions of the bad; ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... and parted—Claude, ashamed of having talked of himself for the first time in his life, and Lily divided between shame at her own folly and pleasure at Claude's ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said the 'cub', "I am satisfied that it's all folly to go further; for Kioto is as like Ozaka as one grain of rice is like another." Then he said to himself: "Old Totsu San (my father) is a fool, ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... Compton enjoyed their company is certain; but it is doubtful if he entered heartily into the plans of their escapades, which they freely discussed around his hearth. Perhaps it was because he had outlived the folly of youth. Though his face was smooth and round, and his eye bright, Little Compton bore the marks of maturity and experience. He used to laugh, and say that he was born in New Jersey, and died there when he was young. What ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... to think how vain Against the Omnipotent to rise in arms; Who out of smallest things could without end Have raised incessant armies to defeat Thy folly; or, with solitary hand, Reaching beyond all limit, at one blow, Unaided, could have finished thee, and ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... about twenty-five is interesting to students of Mr. Hardy's temperament, for they show that he was then as complete, though perhaps not so philosophical a pessimist, as he is now. The present world-war may seem to him a vindication of his despair, and therefore proof of the blind folly of those who pray to Our Father in Heaven. He is, though I think not avowedly so, an adherent of the philosophy of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann. The primal force, from which all things proceed, is the Immanent Will. The Will is unconscious and omnipotent. It is superhuman only in power, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... Sets forth the folly, the inconvenience, the impolicy of KEEPING, and the preference of MARRIAGE, upon the foot of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... stay!" protested Sam. In wild alarm he suspected she was preparing to make him elope with her—and he did not know to what length of folly his infatuation might whirl him. "You've no place ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... "What folly is this, Father Dan? Do you think you know more than God and His Blessed Mother? Do you? Your head is so turned with heathen vanity that you think you ought to get the reins of the universe into your hands. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... unbecoming in a place so sacred as the holy Sepulchre. After we had finished our service, which was about eight in the morning, they, extinguished all their lamps and those of the holy Sepulchre, and then they commenced their folly, running round the holy Sepulchre, like mad people, crying, howling, et faisans un bruit de diables; it was charming to see them running one after another, kicking and striking one another with cords; many of them together held men in their arms, and ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... of lordly Finn and queenly Desdemona attached no meaning to these words, of course; but were it not for the discipline, the generations of discipline in his blood, he could have strangled these two muddlers for the tragic folly of their incompetence, the gross exhibition of ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... you, how that Saviour appears to me. To bear with one so imperfect, so weak, so inconsistent, as myself, implied long suffering and patience more than words can express. I love most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one who, knowing the utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness, my folly, can still have patience; can reform, purify, and daily make me ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... "This is all folly!" exclaimed the leader angrily. "You men are milksops and chicken-hearted." Walter's ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... to break in upon every unguarded avenue of the mind, and overwhelm it with religious fears and prejudices. The stoutest antagonist, if he remit his watch a moment, is oppressed. And many, through cowardice and folly, open the gates to the enemies, and willingly receive them with reverence and submission, as their ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... The folly in me clutched at that admission and gave tongue. "If that's so," I said, "don't you think you could try to ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... recount an instance of the folly and foolhardiness of youth, and the recklessness to which a long course of exposure to danger produces. When Bayonne was invested, I was one night on duty on the outer picket. The ground inside the breastwork which had been thrown up for our protection by Burgoyne ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... mind. But when we learn from observation that we have numerous other important organs of motion, sanguification, digestion, circulation, and nutrition, all demanding exercise in the open air, as alike essential to their own health and to that of the nervous system, it is worse than folly to shut our eyes to the truth, and to act as if we could, by denying it, alter the constitution of nature, and thereby escape the ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... great, dear gift that it was; how I 'won' NOTHING (the hateful word, and French thought)—did nothing by my own arts or cleverness in the matter ... so what pretence have the more artful or more clever for:—but I cannot write out this folly—I am yours for ever, with the utmost sense of gratitude—to say I would give you my life joyfully is little.... I would, I hope, do that for two or three other people—but I am not conscious of any imaginable point in ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the cluster of reefs after the little colony of invalids and prisoners that had been left behind, would have been mere folly: so sending two fishing-boats to search out the shore party, and carry them to the nearest village, the "Adams" continued her course, intending to put into the Penobscot River. While making for this point, a sail was sighted, which proved to be the British brig-sloop "Rifleman." The corvette ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... profit on such a transaction would be trifling, and the risk of the detection of a fact, which must of necessity be known to many of their workmen, would be so great as to render the attempt at it folly. ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... cried the last representative of the O'Donoghues of Bunratty, in scandalised tones. "My dear Rupert, you should have a curtain put up, that this exhibition of folly—of madness, I hardly know what to call it—be not exposed to every casual visitor. Dear me, dear me, that I should live to see any of my kin deliberately throw discredit on his family, if indeed the poor fellow is responsible! Rupert, my good soul, can you ascribe any reason for this terrible ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the advantages of our own position in the western hemisphere, and the disadvantages under which the operations of a European state would labor, are undeniable and just elements in the calculations of the statesman, it is folly to look upon them as sufficient alone for our security. Much more needs to be cast into the scale that it may incline in favor of our strength. They are mere defensive factors, and partial at that. Though distant, our shores can be reached; being defenceless, they can detain but a ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... glory of the world; The head the body's crown; but we on this Plant like a fool's-cap these preposterous forms. Alas for women's folly; and alas For man, who likes his women to be fools, And carefully has bred them ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Flint's book, by pointing out frankly the mistakes and deficiencies in the present methods of our farmers and dairymen, and the best means of remedying them, will do a good and much-needed service to the public. He shows the folly of the false system of economy which thinks it good farming to get the greatest quantity of milk with the least expenditure of fodder, and which regards poor stock as cheaper because it costs less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... you so sad, my prince?' The young man started. In his native country birds did not talk, and, like many people, he was always rather afraid of what he did not understand. But in a moment he felt ashamed of his folly, and explained that he had travelled for more than a year, and over thousands of miles, to win the hand of the sultan's daughter. And now that he had reached his goal he could think of no plan ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... the value it must come to have one day. But he sell all the same. Ah, meu Deus!" The steward clasped his hands and raised rather prominent eyes to the ceiling, protesting to his Maker against his master's folly. "He say we have plenty, and now"—he spread fat hands in a gesture of despair—"and now we have none. Some sons of dogs of French who came with Marshal Soult happen this way on a forage they discover the wine and they guzzle it like pigs." He swore, and ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... I know thy Strength, and thou know'st mine, Neither our own, but giv'n; what folly then To boast what Arms can do, since thine no more Than Heav'n permits; nor mine, though doubled now To trample thee as mire: For proof look up, And read thy Lot in yon celestial Sign Where thou art weigh'd, and shewn how light, how weak, If thou resist. The Fiend look'd ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... he would never give his consent to their marriage, and, as this was now consummated, they had already forfeited one-half of the grandfather's fortune in favour of my Sarah. That was the exemplary punishment which they were to suffer for their folly. ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... gone far enough already. You are my son, but a most foolish one, if not worse, and I feel that I am under obligations to the men or boys who carried you to the horse trough and endeavored to cure you of some of your folly." ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... girl?" demanded Mrs. Curtis eagerly. Her democratic soul was rejoicing in the discovery that her nephew's wife did not lose her title because of the marriage. Of course, no one ever before heard of such folly as this matrimonial leap in the dark, but, once taken, there was satisfaction in the thought that the bride was an earl's daughter. Moreover, she had read of such queer goings on among the British Aristocracy that a wedding at sight was a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... apparently intended as a reminder for stump-orators: 'How exactly proportioned to a man's ignorance of the subject is the noise he makes about it at a public meeting.' Not altogether out of connection here may be this brief sentence:—'Next to the folly of doing a bad thing, is that of fearing to undo it.' In the following, we have a brief sufficient argument against the indulgence of unavailing sorrow or anxiety:—'It has always appeared to me, that there is so much ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... half circle was growing smaller and the crash of the bullets in the wagon above him and in the barricade in front told the boy that the end could not be far away. To the right in the direction of the explosion there was a gap in the fast closing circle. It was folly to delay longer. If escape were possible, it was in that direction. He would make one desperate attempt. One shot remained in his rifles. Putting it where he thought it would do the most good, and catching up the two yet full revolvers, the colored boy crawled ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... feathers and beasts in furs Steal out to dance in the glade, lie still: Let your heart teach you what it will." Said he: "Whenever the moonlight creeps Thro' inlaced boughs, a'nd a shy star peeps Adown from its crib in the cradling sky, Know of their folly who fear to die." ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... at Bougival, and then I spent the evening at a boatmen's ball. Decidedly everything depends on place and surroundings. It would be the height of folly to believe in the supernatural on the ile de la Grenouilliere[1] ... but on the top of Mont Saint-Michel? ... and in India? We are terribly under the influence of our surroundings. I shall return ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... it in Folly-yard, at the house of one Mr. Simple, next door to the sign of the Self-deceiver. Yea, he hath said this to my knowledge twenty ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... to trial, the "thing being of too great difficulty, and beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior court." Dundas himself examined the precognition with great care, and was so convinced of the utter folly of the whole case, that he quashed ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... humidor as he spoke, then scratched a match and held it to his nephew's selection with careful courtesy. He shook his head in smiling disapproval of the swollen eye. "Bad business, young man! Bad business! A fine flower of folly you have there, eh? Don't grow 'm like that at the Ladies' Aid meeting at the First Baptist Church, do they?" He settled back ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... face rose up in his brain, He cursed his will that had dealt her pain: To hurt sweet Emmy and lose her love Was madman's folly by all above. He saw too well as he crossed the yard That his madman's plunge had borne her hard. "To wring sweet Em like ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... probably the noisiest corner of that noisy Paris that lies south of the Seine; and the Casa Perucca is one of the few quiet corners of Europe where the madding crowd is non-existent, and that crowning effort of philanthropic folly, the statute holiday, has yet ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... the young man was on his feet. He dusted the earth from his knees and elbows, approached the window, and said in a calm but resolute voice: "Mister Colonel, I sincerely regret having brought you back to life, but possibly the folly of which I have been guilty is not irreparable. I hope soon to have an opportunity to find out if it be! As for you, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... of an Episcopal cathedral simply as a piece of religious folly. The world will never be converted by Christian palaces and temples. Every dollar used in its construction will be wasted. It will have no tendency to unite the various sects; on the contrary, it will excite the envy and jealousy of every other sect. It will ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... had been caught in petty larceny, twisted their youthful moustaches, put their hands in their pockets, or leant against the wall, trying to look perfectly indifferent as to the event; some of their neighbours smiling satirically at their folly. Old farmer-looking bodies, grumbling at the crush, mingled with Yankees, toothpick in hand, ready for business; sturdy Englishmen whom one knew appreciated creature comforts; and dapper little Frenchmen, hungry yet polite. Here stood a bright-looking Irishwoman, who vainly tried to restrain the ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... but she explained that it was what she called a "throw"—which I told her accounted for the throes I had gone through over it. It made me open my eyes, thinking that anything so pretty could be used for the same purposes for which I use my crash bath-gown, and while my eyes were open I saw the folly of thinking that a girl who wore such things would, or in fact could, ever get along on my salary. In that way the incident was a good lesson for me, for it made me feel that, even if there had been no Lord Ralles, I still should have had ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... of folly Ravidus (poor churl!) Upon my iambs thus would headlong hurl? What good or cunning counsellor would fain Urge thee to struggle in such strife insane? Is't that the vulgar mouth thy name by rote? 5 What will'st thou? ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... folly in the estimation of the early unbelieving world, so were such theological occupations, at a time when the Sovereign Pontiff had not an inch of ground whereon he could freely tread, a subject for jesting and ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... thorough training in the methods of mental testing cannot appreciate how numerous are the opportunities for the unconscious transformation of a test. Many of these are pointed out in the description of the individual tests, but it would be folly to undertake to warn the experimenter against every possible error of this kind. Sometimes the omission or the addition of a single phrase in giving the test will alter materially the significance of the response. Only the trained psychologist can vary the formula without risk of invalidating ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... was due to the neglect and folly of Congress. It had sadly changed from the brave days of the Declaration of Independence. It was filled now with politicians who cared about their own advancement rather than with patriots who sought their country's good. They refused to see that money, ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... acumen, and a man of profoundly religious feelings devoid of fanaticism. But since he who himself is swayed by the intensity of his convictions is he who in turn sways his fellows, possibly the very restraint which saved Stanhope from folly debarred ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... The first Napoleon's magnanimity after Austerlitz has been attributed to the craft of the beaten party,—he allowing the Russians to escape when they had extricated themselves from the false position in which their master's folly had caused them to be placed. But the third Napoleon did allow the Austrians to avoid the consequences of their defeat, and so disappointed Italy and the world. He was magnanimous, and most astonishing to the minds of men was his magnanimity. Most people ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... and set himself to take his share in working the brig, in which he was soon proficient enough to be useful. When the sun rose, they were in a tossing wilderness of waves. With the sunrise, Robert began to think he had been guilty of a great folly. For what could he do? How was he to prevent the girl from going off with her lover the moment they landed? But his poor attempt ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the world is so inconstant as love! It's folly to rely on it, it passes away like a breath; but friendship, conformity of views and habits, similar interests and a long acquaintanceship, these are the surest guarantees of a happy marriage. Louisa is a capable girl, domesticated and methodical, she will make your ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... comedies, illustrative of the folly a man commits when he marries a woman of higher rank than his own, George being his impersonation of a husband who has patiently to endure all the extravagant whims and fancies of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... St. Catherine, noted for her learning, and for converting certain philosophers, sent to convince the Christians of Alexandria of the folly of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a strange difference in his regard of his present folly and of his love in his youthful time. Now he could be mad with method, knowing it to be madness: then he was compelled to make believe his madness wisdom. In those days any flash of reason upon his loved one's imperfections was blurred over hastily ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... always the incarnation of kindness, recommended its suppression. At least Ferguson read enough of Montesquieu to make some fluent generalities sound plausible. He knows that the investigation of savage life will throw some light upon the origins of government. He sees the folly of generalizing easily upon the state of nature. He insists, probably after conversation with Adam Smith, upon the social value of the division of functions. He does not doubt the original equality of men. He thinks the luxury of his age has reached the limit of its useful ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... ought to be, not what they are. His gallants are all faultless, his women divine, And Comedy wonders at being so fine; Like a tragedy-queen he has dizen'd her out, Or rather like tragedy giving a rout. His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud; And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone, Adopting his portraits, are pleased with their own. Say, where has our poet this malady caught? Or wherefore his characters thus without ...
— English Satires • Various
... speech itself? Is there nothing beyond the reach of prejudice and party-spirit? It seems in this, as in so many other instances, as if there was a patent for absurdity in the natural bias of the human mind, and that folly should be stereotyped! ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... very little to me about these subjects, as he knew I did not approve of them, and on this occasion I did not fail to scold him, and to point out the folly of being amused by such things, especially at a time when his attention should be occupied with more serious matters. 'Oh, but I have only told you half,' he replied; 'that was just the beginning,' and then he went on to say that, encouraged by the exactitude of the little ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... natural ugliness and made it beautiful and delicious, as if degradation had suddenly become an exalted thing, like some of the old rites in a Pagan Temple, and she a lovely priestess. And when each new folly was over there was she with her innocent baby air, and her pure childlike face that looked dreamily out from its frame of little girl hair, and seemed not to have been soiled at all. And so men who played her games lost their sense ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... not come; he will remain quietly in his beloved bed, and from there write me a touching epistle concerning the bonds of friendship. I know that when feeling does not flow from the hearts of men, it flows eloquently from ink as a pitiful compensation. But," he continued after a pause, "this is all folly! Solitude makes a dreamer of me—I am sighing for my friends as a lover sighs for his sweetheart! Am I then so entirely alone? Have I not my books? Come, Lucretius, thou friend in good and evil days; thou sage, thou who hast never left me without counsel and consolation! Come and ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause—ah! little do they know That what to them seemed Vice might be but Woe. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fixed for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret Enemy whose sleepless eye Stands sentinel—accuser—judge—and spy. 70 The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain, The envious who but breathe in other's pain— ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the story do nothing to atone for the principals. The lacrimose stoop-to-folly-and-wring-his-bosom Mme. de Tourvel is merely a bore; the ingenue Cecile de Volanges is, as Mme. de Merteuil says, a petite imbecile throughout, and becomes no better than she should be with the facility of a predestined strumpet; her lover, Valmont's rival, and Mme. de Merteuil's ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... power to carry away. And even when they cause destruction in their course, they are still performing friendly offices to man. They are inspiring him with a livelier consciousness of his absolute dependence upon God, and of the folly of resisting His will. They are exercising his intellectual powers, by leading him to devise means for his protection from their fury, and obliging him also to exert his bodily powers in carrying out the devices of his intellect. They are, in fact, contributing to make him a wiser, a stronger, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... of the robbers spring their horses forward, and, closing upon Clancy, seize him from all sides; others serving Jupiter the same. Both see that resistance were worse than folly—sheer insanity—and that there ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid |
