"Foolish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... particularly exciting event to alarm us; and with the knowledge of what is now the future, and will then be the dead past; seeing that all has been for the best for us in the end; that all has come right in spite of us, we will wonder how we could ever have been foolish enough to await each hour in such breathless anxiety. We will ask ourselves if it was really true that nightly, as we lay down to sleep, we did not dare plan for the morning, feeling that we might be homeless and beggars ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... his own heart, he casts the clear confession of his love into her grave. He is even jealous, over her dead body, of her brother's profession of love to her—as if any brother could love as he loved! This is foolish, no doubt, but human, and natural to a certain childishness in ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... his mind when he got there; and so he and the damsel sate opposite one another before the fire. She knew well enough all the while—you're sharp enough, you women—what he was after; and there they sate and sate, and at last he picked up a cinder off the hearth, and looking very foolish, said, 'I've a good mind to fling a cowk at thee!' At which the brave wench, in great contempt, cried, 'I'll soon fling one at thee, if thou artn't off!' That's just as thou'd ha' done, Lizzy, and as I shouldn't," said Johnny, gayly, and laughing ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... of thine ark The thunder of the waters of the earth, The human, simple cries of pain and mirth, The wails of little children in the dark, Thou shalt contemplate thy Circle's radiant gleam, Thou shalt gather self and God more closely still: Let the Piteous and the Foolish moan at will, So thou shelter in the ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... bark will be bounding over yonder ocean, and the weight of ages will have fallen from my heart! I compassionate thee, O foolish sage,—THOU hast ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in so many reels, or parts, they simply stated that the screen-time of the picture was so many minutes, or an hour and so many minutes. From this, the exhibitor may easily reckon the approximate length of the picture. The important point in this connection is that it would seem that the foolish old custom of making a picture run to an arbitrary length, either by padding it out or by cutting it down, regardless of all reason and logic, will soon be a thing of the past. The harm done to certain productions in the past by forcing them to adhere to ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Davis, that you are accusing me of criminal conspiracy—making a statement that might go hard with you in a court of law? You have accused me of trying to discredit you with banking-houses. Can you produce any proof except your foolish and unjust suspicions? You have been made angry by a refusal to handle your bonds. I don't sell bonds. I build and operate ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... long time quietly, his drink untouched before him. I did not disturb his meditation, but indulged in one on my own account, thinking of all I had done for him and his family. But only a foolish man expects gratitude, or for that matter any reward at all for ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... he added to himself, "and she would not have done such a foolish thing. She has gone to some other spot along the shore and is ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... he Macchiavellied; "not one of this push out here knows a thing about the Tango. Most of them have a foolish idea that it's a wicked institution invented by the devil, who sold his patent rights to the Evil-Doers' Association. Now, I'll tell you what we'll do, John: we'll put them wise. We'll take about two lessons from a good instructor in town and on the ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... lost were my days till I met wi' my Jessie, The sports o' the city seem'd foolish and vain; I ne'er saw a nymph I would ca' my dear lassie, Till charm'd with sweet Jessie, the flower o' Dumblane. Though mine were the station o' loftiest grandeur, Amidst its profusion I 'd languish in pain; And reckon as naething the height o' its splendour, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... charged with some secret message from the Senate, and has presented a rare breed of chickens to that foolish—' ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... never been my forte. My life had been a thing of outward manifestations. I never had been secret or even systematically taciturn about my simple occupations which might have been foolish but had never required either caution or mystery. But in those four hours since midday a complete change had come over me. For good or evil I left that house committed to an enterprise that could not be talked about; which would have appeared ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... territory. McLoughlin helps the settlers who would have starved without his aid, and McLoughlin receives such sharp censure from his company for this that he resigns. When the American settlers set up a provisional government, the foolish cry is raised, "54, 40 or fight," which means the Americans claim all the way up to Alaska, and for this there is no warrant either through their own occupation or discovery. The boundary is compromised by the Treaty of Oregon in 1846 ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of your wife's return and my consequent dismissal, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... without reason for exasperation. He was severely attacked for his theories about the curved line of beauty, which was branded as a foolish attempt to prove crookedness elegant, and himself vulgarly caricatured. It was even asserted that the theory was stolen from ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... rest have begun: that were the more shameful if without fighting we should go to Olympus to the bronze-thresholded house of Zeus. Begin, for thou art younger; it were not meet for me, since I was born first and know more. Fond god, how foolish is thy heart! Thou rememberest not all the ills we twain alone of gods endured at Ilios, when by ordinance of Zeus we came to proud Laomedon and served him through a year for promised recompense, and he laid on ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... a remedy against folly," as Gregory says (Moral. ii, 49). Now many that have grace are naturally foolish, for instance madmen who are baptized or those who without being guilty of mortal sin have become insane. Therefore wisdom is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... such a hurry! It's only eleven thirty-five. I've still twenty-five minutes. You don't have to be afraid that I shall do anything foolish; there's the table between us. So you detest me so much that you won't stay and have a little ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... saw how foolish he had been, and he hastened to send Jane back to Sion House; but he stayed in London himself, and cried out like the rest that Mary was Queen. For only three weeks Jane had been Queen, and all that time she had stayed in the gloomy Tower wishing she were back ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the English when they travel are as the wise virgins, and secure the best places. The French are as the foolish virgins, and ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... replied, 'they are weakening this time. There's even one who has been foolish enough to admit that I'm an honest man! See how everything degenerates! But they'll make up for it, never fear! I know some of them whose nuts are too much unlike my own to let them accept my literary formula, my ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... and she was soon his mistress. The marquis, perhaps endowed with the conjugal philosophy which alone pleased the taste of the period, perhaps too much occupied with his own pleasure to see what was going on before his eyes, offered no jealous obstacle to the intimacy, and continued his foolish extravagances long after they had impaired his fortunes: his affairs became so entangled that the marquise, who cared for him no longer, and desired a fuller liberty for the indulgence of her new passion, demanded ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... "It was very foolish and hazardous of you to have returned there at that hour, dear," she declared with sweet solicitation, as she drew on her white gloves preparatory to leaving the restaurant, for I had already paid the bill and drained ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... to be as you wished,' he said pleasantly, 'and Miss Garston has installed herself here as your nurse. Is your mind easier now, you foolish child?' ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... such a change—that one act?" said the ruffian. "Pshaw! girl. God will never damn your soul for the like of that. It was foolish and imprudent; but I don't ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... that the man behind the door in whom she had put her faith was laughing at her. Had she not seen him laugh a score of times in other years at the misery of other women? Had they not sat behind this door, he and she, and made sport of foolish women who came asking the disagreeable, which he ridiculed as the impossible? Had she not sat with him and laughed at his first wife, when she had gone away after some protest? The thought of his mocking face put hate into her heart and she went home hardened ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... "I was foolish," she confessed. "I have been working overtime at the hospital lately—we have sent so many of our nurses to France. My nerves are not quite what ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... they seemed to hear, those unhappy girls, when they heard him sing the songs of the old legends, which they had formerly believed. That was what they understood by the foolish words of the ballad. Then and nothing else, for how could any one doubt it, on seeing the fresh roses on their cheeks, and the tender flame which flickered like a mystic night-light in their eyes, which had, for the moment, become the eyes of innocent ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... rarely gives names of this character to any but the lowly in life, altho perhaps we should cite as exceptions Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek in "Twelfth Night"; the vicar, Sir Oliver Mar-Text, in "As You Like It"; Moth, the page, in "Love's Labor Lost," and Froth, "a foolish gentleman," in "Measure for Measure," but none of these personages quite deserves to rank as an aristocrat. Such a system of nomenclature as we have exposed is enough of itself to fasten the stigma of absurdity ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... But these are foolish things to all the wise, And I love wisdom more than she loves me; My tendency is to philosophise On most things, from a tyrant to a tree; But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies. What are we? and whence came we? what shall be Our ultimate existence? ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... be seen But she will give me nothing but money Duty, simply accepted and simply discharged God may have sent him to purgatory just for form's sake He led the brilliant and miserable existence of the unoccupied If there is one! (a paradise) Never foolish to spend money. The folly lies in keeping it Often been compared to Eugene Sue, but his touch is lighter One half of his life belonged to the poor Succeeded in wearying him by her importunities and tenderness The history of good people is often monotonous ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... asserting itself at last over his curiosity, had much to do; and he fell into a mood, known to all passably sentimental wayfarers, as night deepens again and again over their path, in which all journeying, from the known to the unknown, comes suddenly to figure as a mere foolish truancy—like a child's running away from home—with the feeling that one had best return at once, even through the darkness. He had chosen to climb on foot, at his leisure, the long windings by which the road ascended to the place where that day's stage was to end, and found himself alone ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... together weighty, that the framers of policy can alone divine what is practicable and therefore wise. The imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... your lords I know. These can never be mine— This is the price I pay For the foolish search for ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... "You are foolish," answered Carl. "The world is no different there; there is as little heart in England as in Germany,—no more or less. You are just touching success here; do give it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ferocious jealousy, and the joy of having a man to herself, all agitated her old maid's heart beyond measure. Really in love as she had been for four years, she cherished the foolish hope of prolonging this impossible and aimless way of life in which her persistence would only be the ruin of the man she thought of as her child. This contest between her instincts and her reason made her unjust and tyrannical. She wreaked on the young man her vengeance for her own lot in being ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... evening and talk the matter over? There's an opening for a fellow like you with us that's just developed within the past few days, and—this is strictly confidential—I have succeeded in convincing Braun and Lowenthal that their enmity is a foolish personal matter which business men shouldn't let stand in the way of business. After all, just what is there between you and them? A mere trifle; a misunderstanding that half an hour's talk over a bottle of wine with a good ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... decamp, and I said something sharp to him. We soon drew our swords, and presently the point of mine entered his body. Then Carmen extinguished the lamp, and, wounded though I was, we started running down the street. 'Great fool,' she said. 'You can do nothing but foolish things. Besides, I told you I would bring you bad luck.' She made me take off my uniform and put on a striped cloak, and this with a handkerchief over my head, enabled me to pass fairly well for a peasant. Then she took me to a house at the end of a little lane, and she ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... whistled through their hair. And when the king's son reached the castle he found everything as the fox had said: and he at last entered the room where the golden bird was hanging in a wooden cage, while a golden one was standing by; the three golden apples too were in the room. Then, thinking it foolish to let the beautiful bird stay in that mean and ugly cage, he opened the door of it, took hold of it, and put it in the golden one. In the same moment the bird uttered a piercing cry. The soldiers ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... era of imprisoned moral sense. In the ocean, some waves are tidal waves, and on land sometimes the soil is heaved by an earthquake; at this time God began to heave the conscience of the people as the full moon heaves the sea. And although we now see that God was behind the movement, foolish men then tried to stay these moral forces. Northern merchants and politicians cried, "Peace!" and the Southern successors of Calhoun lifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation went on all over the North. Toombs, ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... very bad cold and hoarseness; and so went off, poor fellow: he never will be long well, I do think. I was foolish to forget G. Crabbe's homoeopathic Aconite: but I sent off some pills of it to Grimsby last ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... legitimate successor of Charles IV. Ferdinand, he added, could show no greater mark of cordiality to his patron than by advancing to meet him on the road. Snared by these hopes, Ferdinand set out from Madrid, in company with Savary and some of his own foolish confidants. On reaching Burgos, the party found no signs of the Emperor. They continued their journey to Vittoria. Here Ferdinand's suspicions were aroused, and he declined to proceed farther. Savary hastened to Bayonne to report the delay to Napoleon. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... which merchants know how to employ, for what reasons our faith was better than the Jewish; and though the Jew was a great master in the Jewish law, nevertheless either the great friendship which he had with Gianotto moved him, or perhaps the words which the Holy Spirit put on the tongue of the foolish man accomplished it, and the Jew began finally to consider earnestly the arguments of Gianotto; but still, tenacious in his own faith, he was unwilling to change. As he remained obstinate, so Gianotto never ceased urging him, so that finally the Jew by this continual ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... O foolish, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! (26)Was it not necessary, that the Christ should suffer these things, and enter into his glory? (27)And beginning from Moses, and all the prophets, he explained to them in all the ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... things be a while," was Solomon's reply, "and mind your own business. It is quite true the lad's throwing my money in the gutter at a fine rate; but in the end I shall get it all back again, and more with it. This Balfour takes me for a foolish doting father, but he shall pay for all himself before I've done with him. I throw a sprat to catch a whale; and neither you nor any other fool shall ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... beyond their intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will perversely improve to the worst of their purposes. An ill-founded plausibility in great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen the wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, pursuing this very course, and ending in this very event. These projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts. These, for the greater part, were not more ridiculous in the mode ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... on then," said Katherine crossly. Then she added, "I suppose it was kind of foolish to expect a big boat like that to stop and pick up a bunch of folks that didn't know any better than to climb into an old lighthouse and let ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... you? of course. Why, you foolish, careless fellow, what was the matter? Afraid to stay by ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... returned the lawyer, with a foolish laugh; "but I was invited not to tell you—till the thing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... effaced, and the Government, because of its suspected sympathy with the Sultan, found itself the object of almost universal execration. Naturally, the less discreet politicians of the day were unable to control themselves under the influence of the prevailing excitement. Many foolish and many dangerous things were uttered at the meetings at which every town and village gave expression to the horror inspired by the Sultan's crimes. Mr. Gladstone's strongest utterances were seized upon by his fervent admirers and were carried to an extreme from which he himself ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... [Justin] say that this Christ existed as God before the ages, then that He submitted to be born, and become man, yet that He is not man of man, this [assertion] appears to me to be not merely paradoxical, but also foolish. And I replied to this, I know that the statement does appear to be paradoxical, especially to those of your race, who are ever unwilling to understand or to perform the [requirements] of ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... consequence is certain; for each of the parties is likely enough to break up the visit miserably discontented, and to return under a thorough conviction that, while everything done in their own ship is wrong, all the officers are either foolish or tyrannical, or both. If there must be ship-visiting, let it be on week days, and in the morning; but, clearly, the less the better; and most assuredly it ought never to be ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... insist on before going into details, and that is as to the necessity of perfect truthfulness in dealing with sick children. The foolish device of telling a child when ill, that the doctor who has been sent for is its uncle or its cousin, is the outcome of the still more foolish falsehood of threatening the child with the doctor's visit if it does not do this or that. No endeavour should be spared by ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... that the French Government was not a stranger to designs hatched in France for helping the Khalifa[418]. Now that these questions have been happily buried by the Anglo-French agreement of the year 1904, it would be foolish to recount all that was said amidst the excitements of the year 1898. Some reference must, however, be made to the Fashoda incident, which for a short space threatened to bring Great Britain and France to an ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... by the arguments or the sneers of his companions; and as the discussion waxed warm, Cepeda taxed his opponent with giving counsel suggested by fears for his own safety,—a foolish taunt, sufficiently disproved by the whole life of the doughty old warrior, Carbajal did not insist further on his own views, however, as he found them unwelcome to Pizarro, and contented himself with coolly ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... burnt powder, and near the stump lay the cigar. As he was talking to the people, I stepped up to him and asked him if an angel had appeared to him in a flash of light. He said, 'Yes.' 'Sargent,' said I, 'did not that angel smell of brimstone?' 'Why,' said he 'do you ask such a foolish question?' 'Because,' said I, 'if an angel has spoken to you, he was from the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;' and, raising my voice, I said, 'I smell sulphur now.' I walked to the stump and showed the people his wicked trick. They were very indignant and called him a vile imposter, ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... the others rose and trailed out after him: big blue Rasper, Londesley's Lassie, Ned Hoppin's young dog; Grip and Grapple, the publican's bull-terriers; Jim Mason's Gyp, foolish and flirting even now; others there were; and last of all, waddling heavily in the rear, that scarred Amazon, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... is a social instinct to conform to the custom of one's fellows, and the children have reached "the age of consent" in matters of fashion. Their fathers and mothers may lend their influence to abolish foolish customs, or to modify them in the direction of wisdom, but it is best that this be in their capacity as citizens, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... so important; they are records of customs and habits long forgotten, but once common in the daily life of the people. In them the past is potent with life, and for this reason they claim the most careful and patient study. I speak of the most familiar stories that we have regarded as foolish fables. Nowhere else can we gain so clear and vivid a picture of the childhood of civilisation, when women were the transmitters of inheritance and ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... Marcolina, you will admit," answered Casanova promptly, "that even the Sophists were far from being such contemptible, foolish apprentices as your harsh criticism would imply. Let me give you a contemporary example. M. Voltaire's whole technique of thought and writing entitles us to describe him as an Arch-Sophist. Yet no one will refuse the due meed of honor to ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... "Tell me, you foolish one," she persisted, her curiosity fully aroused. "I must and will know about it now;" and she stamped her little foot with an air of command, which, toward her favorite, was ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... the opinion of her confidants and of Hebrew priests, for it had been admitted for years that she held the faith of Jehovah. Nero found his own methods, which, frequently terrible, were more frequently foolish, and fell now into terror, now into childish delight, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bonds of union. He would speak to them what he had learnt after years of patient labour, that the impossible became possible by persistent and determined efforts and adherence to duty and entire selflessness. The greatest obstacle often arises out of foolish misunderstanding of each other's ideals, such as the differing points of view, first of the Indian teacher, then of his western colleague, and last but not least, the point of view of the Indian pupils themselves. In all these respects ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... His Majesty the King to know that, six years ago, in the summer of his birth, Mrs. Austell, turning over her husband's papers, had come upon the intemperate letter of a foolish woman who had been carried away by the silent man's strength and personal beauty? How could he tell what evil the overlooked slip of note-paper had wrought in the mind of a desperately jealous wife? How could he, despite his wisdom, guess that his mother ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... at the thought that she might inadvertently have cast a little bit of a smile at Mr. Chichester; and on several occasions she heartily enjoyed Peevy's angry suspicions. But after a while she grew tired of such inconsistent and foolish manifestations. They made her unhappy, and she was too vigorous and too practical to submit to unhappiness with that degree of humility which her more cultivated sisters sometimes exhibit. One Sunday afternoon, knowing Chichester to be away, Tuck Peevy sauntered ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... purpose. The reason is that in the former case there is question only of the maxim, which must be genuine and pure; but in the latter case there is question also of one's capacity and physical power to realize a desired object. A command that everyone should try to make himself happy would be foolish, for one never commands anyone to do what he of himself infallibly wishes to do. We must only command the means, or rather supply them, since he cannot do everything that he wishes. But to command ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... campaigns of Pacorus, that on the whole Rome was a more powerful state than Parthia, and that consequently Parthia had nothing to gain but much to lose in the contest with her western neighbor, he did well to allow no sentiment of foolish pride to stand in the way of a concession that made a prolonged peace between the two countries possible. It is sometimes more honorable to yield to a demand than to meet it with defiance; and the prince who removed a cause of war arising out of mere national vanity, while at the same time he maintained ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... they exhibit little or no delicacy in propounding their views. The young Englishman in question, often of the upper classes, and also often rich, is disagreeable in other ways also. He adores wealth and despises poverty. He is a very slave to what is most foolish in our social customs, ignoring entirely those that are commendable. He would not carry a parcel through the street if any amount of money would induce some one else to do it for him. He scoffs at religion of every ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... of old boardin'-school friends who'd lost track of each other. Quite a stunner, young Mrs. Nixon is, too, and Bert is a good match for her. The two girls hold quite a reunion, with us men standin' around lookin' foolish. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... go in peace," answered the woman, "I will manage that." "You, indeed," said the man. "You once fell on your head when you were a little child, and that affects you even now; but let me tell you this, if you do anything foolish, I will make your back black and blue, and not with paint, I assure you, but with the stick which I have in my hand, and the colouring shall last a whole year, you may rely on that." And having said that, the man went on ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... for the half mile of which the girl had spoken. A sudden shyness seemed to have come over both of them. Then they began to come in sight of houses. "I am not afraid now," said the girl, "but I do think you are very foolish if you go back alone and try to hunt that man. Ten chances to one he is armed, and you haven't a thing to defend yourself ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... what has happened," retorted the visitor. "Because if anything has happened there will be something for me to do, and it's foolish to sit down when one's got to get up again immediately. Mr. Chestermarke, are you ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... classes. (c) The foundation of the instruction rests upon Christ. (d) Proper attitude of the Christian community toward the Pagan world; magistrates and those who have not yet believed in Christ. Kindness and gentleness and the avoidance of foolish questions best reveal the spirit of Christ by those who profess His name. (e) Parting requests ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... lifted to her eyes was wet with tears not of the stage. "It seems so foolish!" she said bravely. "It's because I'm so happy! Everything has come all at once, this week. I'd never been in New York before in my life. Doesn't that seem funny for a girl that's been on the stage ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... read the art and wisdom rare; Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame, His providence extending everywhere, His justice which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page, no, period of the same. But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold, Fair dangling ribbons, leaving what is best, On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold; Or, if by chance we stay our minds on aught, It is some picture ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... visiting some of the places rendered celebrated during the late wars; but that if he preferred a diplomatic mission I would make a suitable provision for his expenses; and the great innovator, Time, might effect great changes during the period of his absence. But my foolish Council affirmed to me that his guilt, as a principal, being evident, it was absolutely necessary to bring him to trial; and now his sentence is only that of a pickpocket. What think you I ought to do? Detain him? He might still prove a rallying-point. No. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the influence of France. Both the claimants were made prisoners; the ladies carried on a chivalric warfare, Jeanne de Montfort against Jeanne de Blois, and all went favourably with the French party till Philip, with a barbarity as foolish as it was scandalous, tempted the chief Breton lords to Paris and beheaded them without trial. The war, suspended by a truce, broke out again, and the English raised large forces and supplies, ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... the artist's political preferences by the bowl of his pipe, Combarieu complacently eulogized himself. Upon his own admission he had at first been foolish enough to dream of a universal brotherhood, a holy alliance of the people. He had even written poems which he had published himself, notably an "Ode to Poland," and an "Epistle to Beranger," which latter had evoked an autograph letter ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to see you in town, Mr. Titmarsh." Foolish mockery! If all the people whom one has met abroad, and who have said, "We hope to meet you often in town," had but made any the slightest efforts to realize their hopes by sending a simple line of invitation through the penny post, what an enormous dinner acquaintance ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Damn! How foolish, how supremely silly that tired men somewhere away in the woods the other side of the lines should be shoving a shell into the breach of a gun to kill him, ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... remonstrated, but she was aware that her heartbeats had quickened. It was one thing to listen to Aunt Abigail's harrowing recitals, in a room made cheerful by firelight and companionship, and another to recall the same horrors in comparative solitude. "You're not foolish enough to believe in things of that sort," Ruth remarked, with a brave effort to maintain her air ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Mrs. Masham, formerly Abigail Hill, a cousin of Harley, through whom the minister was intriguing for the overthrow of the Churchills. Then Dr. Sacheverell, a London clergyman, afterwards so notorious, had preached violently against the Whigs, who were foolish enough to impeach him. Sacheverell was suspended for three years, and in consequence became exceedingly popular among the Tories, and their party gained greatly in the country. Moreover the writings of certain pamphleteers tended ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... the tow-path, she stopped affrighted. Surely something had moved, something heavy, with a sound of broken branches. Was it the memory of last night come on her again; or, indeed, someone there? She walked back a few steps. Foolish alarm! In the meadow beyond a cow was brushing against the hedge. And, stealing along the grass, out on to the tow-path, she went swiftly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... days had been. And this then was the meaning of her receding from his advice and from his roof! She had been preparing for herself in the world new hopes, a new home, and a new ambition. And she had so prevailed upon the old man that he was about to do this foolish thing! Then again he walked up and down the room, injuring his mother much in his thoughts. He gave her credit for none of those circumstances which had truly actuated her in accepting the hand which Sir Peregrine had offered her. In that matter touching the Orley Farm estate he could ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... "Foolish fellow! And so this is her attraction after all! This it is, her not caring about you, which gives her such a soft skin, and makes her so much taller, and produces all these charms and graces! I do desire that you will not be making her really unhappy; a little love, perhaps, may animate and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Argumentative as the Buddhist suttas are, their aim is strictly practical, even when their language appears scholastic, and the burden of all their ratiocination is the same and very simple. Men are unhappy because of their foolish desires: to become happy they must make themselves a new heart and will and, perhaps the Buddha would have added, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... good thing of one or two speculations, and may possibly have twenty or thirty thousand dollars, if he hasn't sunk it in some of his mad schemes. I was foolish enough to indorse one of his notes without security. He is an unprincipled man; and if Whippleton has been operating with him, I am not surprised that he is in trouble. Now go, Mr. Philips, and send Mr. ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... comes a Day (I can hear it coming), One of those glorious deep blue days, When larks are singing and bees are humming, And Earth gives voice in a thousand ways— Then I, my friends, I too shall sing, And hum a foolish little thing, And whistle like (but not too like) a blackbird in ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... belief—were scarcely less so when they saw the little party of adventurers return in safety from their desperate errand; for that return meant that one great danger at least had been safely passed, and surely now they might rely upon the citizens of San Juan to do nothing foolish. So they plucked up heart of grace, and became quite cheery and affable with the Englishmen until Heard, the purser, rather maliciously reminded them that the matter of the indemnity still remained unsettled and that many things ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they cannot escape their share of responsibility for the whirlwind that is reaped. This applies alike to the deliberate demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism, and to the crude and foolish visionary who, for whatever reason, apologizes for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... men were warned against listening to seditious persons who might try to poison their minds and shake their loyalty to the Government. He then told them that he was sorry to say that at one or two stations the men had been foolish enough to listen to disloyal counsels, and that in consequence the regiments had been disbanded and the men had forfeited all the advantages in the way of pay and pension they had earned by many years of good conduct. He said that he had no fear ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... impossible to have two absolutely distinct parts in a novel, and to imbue them both with interest. If they be distinct, the one will seem to be no more than padding to the other. And so it was in The Way We Live Now. The interest of the story lies among the wicked and foolish people,—with Melmotte and his daughter, with Dolly and his family, with the American woman, Mrs. Hurtle, and with John Crumb and the girl of his heart. But Roger Carbury, Paul Montague, and Henrietta Carbury are uninteresting. Upon the whole, I by no means look upon the book as one of ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... thinking, man, but you're quite wrong," Patrick took the opportunity to put in hurriedly, conciliatingly. "I just happened to be coming by hungry tonight, a lonely tramp, and knocked at the window. Your wife was a bit foolish and let kindheartedness get the better ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... bound in chains of iron, sitting around that fruit-yielding tree, pay their adorations to it, in expectation of obtaining its fruit.[1096] He who, subduing those chains, cutteth down that tree and seeks to cast off both sorrow and joy, succeeds in attaining to the end of both.[1097] That foolish man who nourishes this tree by indulgence in the objects of the senses is destroyed by those very objects in which he indulges after the manner of a poisonous pill destroying the patient to whom it is administered.[1098] A dexterous person, however, by ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... doubt it in the least. Don't try to make yourself out that foolish and unreasonable creature—an unbeliever in what is as clear to a thinking mind as is the sun at noonday. You and I have no need to enter into an argument concerning this matter. You have seen some unwise and inconsistent ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Thank you, Grandfather Frog!" cried the Merry Little Breezes, and hurried to see who would be the first one to blow a big, fat, foolish green fly within reach of ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... 9 Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their works shall be in ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... valley, the habitant's eyes still on the trees, and once he stopped to emit a gurgling laugh at a badly hacked trunk, beneath which was a snowed-up sap trough; but I could not divine whether Paul's mirth were over a prospect of sugaring-off in the maple-woods, or at some foolish habitant who had tapped the maple too early. How often had I known my guide to exhaust city athletes in these swift marches of his! But I had been schooled to his pace from boyhood and kept up with him at every step, though we were going so fast I lost all ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... looking up, he and Ada beheld the tall form of Zappa standing in the doorway. He advanced into the room, making a low reverence towards her, at the same time that he stretched out his hand in the direction Paolo was standing. "Go, foolish youth!" he exclaimed, in a tone in which contempt blended with anger. "You will some day try my patience more ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... arms; Sir Percy was rich, his wife was accomplished, the Prince of Wales took a very great liking to them both. Within six months they were the acknowledged leaders of fashion and of style. Sir Percy's coats were the talk of the town, his inanities were quoted, his foolish laugh copied by the gilded youth at Almack's or the Mall. Everyone knew that he was hopelessly stupid, but then that was scarcely to be wondered at, seeing that all the Blakeneys for generations had been notoriously dull, and that his mother died ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... arrived at Britt's shoulder. "'But God has chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... 'Generalissimo Anton Ulrich,' now ruled, with Munnich for right-hand man; and these were high times for Anton Ulrich, Generalissimo and Czar's-Father; who indeed was modest, and did not often interfere in words, though grieved at the foolish ways his Wife had. An indolent flabby kind of creature, she, unfit for an Autocrat; sat in her private apartments, all in a huddle of undress; had foolish notions,—especially had soubrettes who led her about by the ear. And then there was a 'Princess Elizabeth,' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wonderful fact. The truth is, Mohammed's great lie was founded on, and propagated with, an equally great truth, a truth amply sufficient to carry it. In the midst of abominable idolatry, of stupid polytheism, Mohammed proclaimed: 'There is no God but God!' His wild and foolish fictions were based on that grand, unalterable truth. That truth is big enough to bear up more lies than even he ventured to cover it with. The human heart leaped up to grasp the great fact that props the Universe—'GOD IS!'—and, in its love for that, accepted also the falsehoods ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... strikingly how helpless many of our wild creatures are in deep snow, the third sight came. We started a prairie chicken next. It had probably been resting in the snow to the right side of the trail. It began to run when the horses came close. And in a sudden panic as it was, it did the most foolish thing it possibly could do: it struck a line parallel to the trail. Apparently the soft snow in which it sank prevented it from taking to its wings. It had them lifted, but it did not even use them in running as most of the members of its ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... was more his manner: but I can't tell how it was. It was chiefly my own fault. I was foolish to suppose he could ever think seriously of me. But he used to make me read with him—and I used to be with him a good deal, though not much neither—and I found my affections entangled before ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... be very foolish for us to continue strangers any longer. You can never by persistency make wrong right. If I resented too acrimoniously, I resented only to yourself. Nobody ever saw or heard what I wrote. You saw that my anger was over, for in a day or two I came ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill |
