"Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that defiles the man. (21)For from within, out of the heart of men, come forth evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, (22)thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, wantonness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. (23)All these evil things come forth from ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... Elephants with painted tusks, and loaded to the groaning-point under howdahs decked with jewels and gold-leaf, came and went through the carved entrance-gates. Occasionally camels, loaded too until their legs all but buckled underneath them, strutted with their weird, mixed air of foolishness and dignity, to be disburdened of great cases that eight men could scarcely lift; on the outside the cases were marked "Hardware," but a horde of armed and waiting malcontents scattered about the countryside could ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... of Fate appears to be stopped by the Line of Head (4-4, Plate XII.), it foretells that his career will be spoiled by the subject's own stupidity or mental foolishness. ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... She merely said in her fretful mumbling way, "What foolishness are you young rips up to now?" and thought no more about it. Mr. Meredith had gone away early in the morning before any one was up. He went without his breakfast, too, but that was, of course, of common occurrence. Half of the time he forgot it and there ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the more than utter foolishness of this latter Charlie o'er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose, there is but one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch, the sorriest of jargons, compared with which even Roth Welsch is dignified and expressive, has yet one word to express ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... until she had taken to boiling them whole. And as I sat and pictured them all sitting on the back porch with the big lamp lighted, just cutting away, maybe Byrd still up for the emergency, the whole dance seemed to put on a mask of grinning foolishness and resolve itself, with its jiggy music, into a large bunch of nothing, with me included. I was in a bad way for the best dancer in Hayesboro, not ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... called me in; very concerned; Annie, ten years, very ill; sweet little thing; took her some Benger's Food and milk; wine. Mother in mortal dread of seeing child sent to hospital; but what foolishness! Selfish, and ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... and his opponents attacked, was a revelation direct from God. He knew too, that, in the words of St. Paul, he had to preach what to the holiest of the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the wisest of the Greeks foolishness. He was none the less ready to do so, that Jesus Christ, his Lord, might say of him, as He said once of that Apostle, 'I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Luther's enemies in the Romish Church have ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... searching into, and studying of this one truth, in reference to a closing with it as our life, is an infallible mark of a soul divinely enlightened, and endued with spiritual and heavenly wisdom; for though it be unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness, yet unto them who are called, it is Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. O what depths of the manifold wisdom of God are there in this mystery! The more it is preached, known, and believed ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... light. It is mystery, on the other hand, which the religious instinct demands and pursues; it is mystery which constitutes the essence of worship, the power of proselytism. When the cross became the "foolishness" of the cross, it took possession of the masses. And in our own day, those who wish to get rid of the supernatural, to enlighten religion, to economize faith, find themselves deserted, like poets who should declaim against poetry, or women who should decry love. Faith consists in the acceptance ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that this is the stone which the builders of our government refused, and that it is now become the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the drawing-room all night wasting your precious time discussing something lofty and elevated... There, forgive me, forgive me; it's not my business. I felt sure yesterday that it would all end in foolishness. I brought her to you simply to amuse you, and to show you that you wouldn't have a dull time with me. I shall be of use to you a hundred times in that way. I always like pleasing people. If you don't want her now, which was what I was ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... gladness, quite as if everything was just as it should be. Reddy's courage began to come back. Nothing had happened, and nothing was going to happen. Of course not! It was all some of Peter Rabbit's foolishness. Some day he would catch Peter Rabbit and put an end to such ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... away her tears with her handkerchief] Nothing. Foolishness. You can go with him, too, if you like, and ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... was two hundred and fifty against five times that number, but with the two hundred and fifty was a man whose mere presence equalized conditions, while with the twelve hundred and fifty was another whose braggart foolishness diminished their superiority until, in the end, it really amounted ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... things, please, Dick," she begged. "It is my own foolishness if I am disturbed. I really had nothing to do. Mr. Thew has been ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stay here any longer," broke in Babalatchi, angrily. "This is great foolishness. No woman is worth a man's life. I am an old man, and ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... been the height of foolishness, and Larry did not try. The Tagals asked him a number of questions in their own tongue, but he shook his head to show them that he did not understand. On their part, not one could speak English, so neither party could communicate with ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... by foolishness," said Maren Le Moyne, and all the pleasure had slipped from her deep voice, leaving ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... I made stories in my heart and at last, although that was not for some years, I began to write these stories down in my spare hours. My sisters found me doing so and told my father, who scolded me for such foolishness which he said would never furnish me with bread and beer. But still I wrote on in secret by the light of the lamp in my chamber at night. Then my sisters married, and one day my father died suddenly while he was reciting prayers in the temple. I caused him to ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... them craftily, smiling behind his hand, with the cunning born of the fog in his brain. Shortly they went away again, leaving on the table a pile of silver. Cable the President! What a joke! and he chuckled aloud. He would teach them to come and worry him with their foolishness. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... pay no 'tention ter her foolishness," said Chunk coolly. "Dis life-en-death business, en Zany ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... talking me round! No, that is not so. I am merely sure he did not do it. Ah! I see you think that absurd. But see how unreasonable you are, Mr. Trent! Just now you were explaining to me quite sincerely that it was foolishness in you to have had a certain suspicion of me." Trent started in his chair. She glanced at him, and went on: "Now I know a great deal more about Mr. Marlowe than you know about me even now. I saw him constantly for several ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... Poloe. Perhaps their land—the far-off land—is a poor one; they may not have enough to eat. If so, they may stay in this rich land of mine to hunt and fish as long as they please. But tell them that the Eskimos love wise men, and do not care for foolishness. They must not talk any more about this search after nothing—this Nort ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... General. "You'll be counting meals on each other, like the Yankees, after a while," he said. "Why don't you quit your foolishness; and if you want to see each other, go and see. I don't know what your feelings are in the matter, sir," he added, turning to me, "but I don't see much good in this so-called public school system. And of all worthless things under heaven it is a ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... yo' Bibles 'stead of studyin foolishness. (He gets up and starts into the store. Clarke and the little girl follow him.) Reckon Ah better git dat medicine. (The three exit ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... foolishness to name these streets after me," said Quincy, as they stood on the corner of Sawyer Street. "There's Adams Street back of the Town Hall and Quincy Street on ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... quaint conceit of old Fuller. But what is not a conceit to those who read it in a temper different from that in which the writer composed it? The most pathetic parts of poetry to cold tempers seem and are nonsense, as divinity was to the Greeks foolishness. When Richard II., meditating on his own utter annihilation as to royalty, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... fetch out all straight, though, in a year or so," put in Uncle Peter, from over his chop, with guileless intent to defend his grandson from what he believed to be an attack. "Of course a young man's bound to get some foolishness into him in an Eastern college like this ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... stay at The Young Women's Christian Association, and I am sure they will expect her to be in bed before any midnight foolishness," said Miss Elvira, with a severe glance at the frivolous Mamie Lou. "I shall, of course, make her an evening dress or two, one especially to wear when the multitude calls her before the curtain to express their admiration of and enthusiasm over her play, but I shall ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... searching for a place to ascend the cut bank. But by the time he came to a slope he had cooled sufficiently to realize the foolishness of bravado. Not unlikely the murderer was lying back out of sight, ready to shoot him when he came up out of the creek. He reflected, and decided that the going was quite good enough in the bottom of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... cried Patsy, her blue eyes dancing. "And did you notice how scared poor Ajo was, and how he skipped as fearfully as though he had committed some crime? But I'm sure the poor boy meant well. Let's open our boxes, girls, and see what foolishness ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... King Josias began to reign at eight years of age, and in another, at eighteen. What if we freely admit that we cannot reconcile these statements? That does not prove that they are not reconcilable. The history of solved contradictions has certainly shown this, that as "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men," so the discords of God ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... of the feast sat at the head of the board. He was greatly altered. He had grown thick-set and rather gummy, with a fiery, foxy head of hair. There was a singular mixture of foolishness, arrogance, and conceit in his countenance. He was dressed in a vulgarly fine style, with leather breeches, a red waistcoat, and green coat, and was evidently, like his guests, a little flushed with drinking. The whole company stared at me with a whimsical muggy look, like men whose senses were ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Mah-li, thy sister, shall learn a text from the sage Confucius each day for penance. They are now in the inner courtyard, studying the six shadows which attend the six virtues. I can hear them saying over and over to each other, "Love of goodness without the will to learn casts the shadow called foolishness—" now a laugh— then again they begin, "Love of knowledge without the will to learn casts the shadow called instability—" giggle and much talking. I am afraid they will never arrive at the shadow cast the love of truth, and after I have written ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... champion, a trifle annoyed. "What's the use o' talkin' foolishness, Kent? I never saw the day I ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... 'That was foolishness; for though Tabaqui is a mischief-maker, he would have told thee of something that concerned thee closely. Open those eyes, Little Brother. Shere Khan dare not kill thee in the jungle; but remember, Akela is very old, and soon the day comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he will ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... Brannigan's last night, buying peppermint drops and every kind of foolishness, the same as she might be a little girleen that was given a penny and her just ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... world. Therefore the child would know why he loves this thing, he would know all its properties. For this reason he examines the object on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it. We reprove the child for naughtiness and foolishness; and yet he is wiser ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Gaston's attention. He's my friend now, by gosh! He's going to stand by me. He's the real stuff and shows up to me in the finest colours, never once hinting that your seeking him had made you cheap. He's a bigger feller than I ever thought, and I ain't going to have no foolishness. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... the dumfounded skipper, who faced him, mouth agape. "This is no time for any more foolishness. It's a case of work together to save our lives. Down with ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... "Your brothers have both maimed themselves; you had better stop at home, for you know nothing of the job." But Dummerly was very urgent; and at last his father said, "Go your way; you will be wiser when you have suffered for your foolishness." And his mother gave him only some dry bread, and a bottle of sour ale; but when he went into the forest, he met the little old man, who said, "Give me some meat and drink, for I am very hungry and thirsty." Dummerly said, "I have nothing but dry bread and sour beer; if that ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... he doesn't understand a thing at once he dismisses it with "pooh." As I ascend the wide oak staircase, with room enough for eight people abreast on every step, I reflect on the foolishness of a man saying "pooh," hastily. How many great schemes might anyone nip in the bud by one "pooh." What marvellous inventions, apparently ridiculous in their commencing idea, would be at once knocked on the head by a single "pooh." The rising Artist ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... a great many more will go the same way. You just listen to me. I don't wear any uniform, but I've got eyes to see and ears to hear. I suppose that more monumental foolishness has been hidden under cocked hats and gold lace than under anything else, since the world began. Easy now, I don't say that fools are not more numerous outside armies than in them—there are more people outside—but the mistakes of ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... old man," he said. "But I've got to go back. I ran last night like a scared kid, but I'm through with that sort of foolishness." ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... but if carried to an excess it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. The mineral wealth of the country, the coal, iron, oil, gas, and the like, does not reproduce itself, and therefore is certain to be exhausted ultimately; and wastefulness in dealing with it to-day ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is foolishness! In Argolis, a woman, somewhat vain, Preferred a fop to her own rightful lord And ran away; and then for ten long years The might of Hellas on the Trojan plain Grappled in conflict such as had been mete ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... had power over the spirits of the earth, and of the air, and of the water, and made them serve me; and my kingdom was exalted, and there was peace in my days. But when I became mighty my heart was lifted up, and I committed foolishness; for I saw the daughter of a certain Jebusite, and loved her exceedingly, and asked for her in marriage. But her kinsfolk said, "You shall not take her to be your wife except you worship our gods, even the great ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my foolishness. And I hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... till very lately that I could, with truth, call myself so. The pride of philosophy had intoxicated my reason, and the sublimest of all wisdom appeared to me, as it did to the Greeks of old, to be foolishness. God hath, however, been so gracious to shew me my error in time, and to bring me into the way of truth, before I ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... demanded, "what was the important business before the meeting? I could not spare valuable time for self-government foolishness to-night." ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... show the possessors to be faithless, traitorous, and sacrilegious; and if these eyes are also yellow and cold, they argue insanity. For hollow eyes are the sign of craft and malignity; and if they are wanting in darkness, they also show foolishness. But if the eyes are too hollow, and of medium size, dry and rigid,—if, besides this, they have broad, overhanging eyebrows, and livid and pallid circles round them, they indicate impudence and malignity." [Footnote: ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... likely home and dry by this time—all foolishness; don't be an old woman." The two men reentered the room and found Helen clinging to Minnie's hand on the sofa. She looked up at ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... move us; else why did Judas persist in covetousness in the very presence of Christ? why did Balaam, whose "eyes were opened," remain with a closed heart? why did Satan fall, when he was a bright Archangel? Nor will reason subdue us; else why was the Gospel, in the beginning, "to the Greeks foolishness"? Nor will excited feelings convert us; for there is one who "heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;" yet "hath no root in himself," and "dureth" only "for a while." Nor will self-interest ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... was so friendly in Scotland that she did not fear ridicule for herself in order to save you from the possibility of ridicule—surely she will be so well-wishing to you that she will understand you have nothing to do with the foolishness on the stage." ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... that time when Mrs. Marsh died she wanted to adopt the twins and bring them up. The idea! When there was a county poorhouse and no reason why they shouldn't go to it! But she'll have to come down off her independence and be sensible. Herbert says we can't have any of her foolishness. It's us that would have to suffer if she got into trouble and lost what little she's got, and I suppose I've got to have it out with her once and for all and get this thing settled. It's getting on all our nerves, and I've got the fall house-cleaning and jelly to do, and I ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... all," replied Blacky. "I was just talking foolishness to myself." Sammy looked at him sharply. "You aren't feeling sick, are you, Cousin Blacky?" he asked. "Must be something the matter with you when you begin talking about new-laid eggs, when everything's covered with ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... foolishness! Better come into the garden. You would be better employed examining the garden than digging around here. I can do ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... between the obvious duty of obeying orders and an equally obvious conviction of the foolishness of the injunction laid upon her. The struggle resulted in her saying doubtfully, "If you please, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... husband, the roof of the church was still in existence. Her husband tore it down, and used it for building out-houses; he also attempted to dig out the corner-stone, but failed. In general, the vandalism committed in this venerable relic of antiquity defies all description. It is only equalled by the foolishness of such as, having no other means to secure immortality, have cut out the ornaments from the sculptured beams in order to obtain a surface suitable to carve their euphonious names. All the beams of the old structure are quaintly, but still ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... were after-reflections—thoughts of the next morning. During that night we thought only of the Indians, for of course we did not as yet believe they had left us for good. We did not return to sleep by the fire—that would have been very foolishness. Some went back to get their arms in order, and then returning we all lay along the edge of the bluff, where the path led into the bottom, and watched the prairie until the morning. We lay in silence, or only muttering ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... it jist looks like as if she was too stubborn to quit bein' sick, now she's started. If yous folks hadn't gone gallivantin' off down the crick that day this would never 'a' happened. Arabella's too old for such foolishness, anyhow. Well, I'll run home. Tell her I'll be back in an hour or so an' ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... Filltree. He sez, 'I've sold out the express business on account of the North Fork, but it's bound to get me yet, Bill, sure'; and he laughs. Two weeks after they finds his body below the ford, whar he tried to cross, comin' down from the Summit way. Folks said it was foolishness: Tommy, I sez it was Fate! The second day arter I was changed to the Placerville route, thet woman comes outer the hotel above the stage-office. Her husband, she said, was lying sick in Placerville; ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... comes to an instant or speedy perfection, and is not capable of any improvement or cultivation; that its objects are precise and limited; that within its proper sphere it often appears as the highest wisdom, but beyond this is only foolishness; that it uses complex and laborious means to provide for the future, without any prescience of it; that it performs important and rational operations which the animal neither intends nor knows anything about; that it is permanent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... people, awake from thy dreaming, In foolishness be not immersed! Clear is the sky, brightly the sun is beaming; The clouds are now ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... has no right to say that they are better or more valuable than pain, or that the emotions of enjoyment or the ideas of wisdom or the impulses of virtue are, psychologically considered, more valuable than grief or vice or foolishness. In the system of physical and psychical objects, there is thus no room for any possible value; and even in the thought and idea of value there is nothing but an indifferent mental state produced by certain brain excitement. For as soon as we illuminate ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... his house in Ars, and found there a zealous and holy man, instead of the ridiculous figure which the cure's enemies had made him out to be. Speaking one day to his assembled clergy, in regard to the cure of Ars, he said: "Gentlemen, would that you all had a trifle of the foolishness about which you make so merry. It would not prejudice your ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... 'Twas the nature av the baste to put the comether on the best av thim - not the prettiest by any manner av manes - but the like av such woman as you cud lay your band on the Book an' swear there was niver thought av foolishness in. An' for that very reason, mark you, he was niver caught. He came close to ut wanst or twice, but caught he niver was, an' that cost him more at the ind than the beginnin'. He talked to me more than most, bekaze he tould me, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... true, O children, that his wisdom was flecked with folly, but what saith the proverb? 'No one so wise but he has some folly to spare.' Moreover, in his foolishness there was often a hidden meaning, as a letter is hid in a basket ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... you mean? Officer, where are you got to? Lay hold of her. Oh! but I'm going to stop your foolishness for ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... turned upon the capture of my horse-boy, Tomas. The other blacks, it seemed, had made good their escape; but Tomas, lagging behind through fear or foolishness, had given these copper-colored devils leave to run him down and drag him back into the fire light, with ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... kept the clothing and all the little nothings that had once belonged to his wife revealed the depths of love—or the foolishness of it, all depending upon your point of view. Mrs. Millais tells of calling at Rossetti's house in Cheyne Walk in Eighteen Hundred Seventy, nearly ten years after the death of Elizabeth Eleanor, and having occasion to hang her wraps in a wardrobe, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... safe with her promises now. She'd got a woman's conviction, which be stronger than a man's reason every time, that Spider was alive and kicking, and had run away for some fantastic jealousy or other foolishness. For the little man was always in extremes. She felt that once she faced him, she'd soon conquer and have him home in triumph very likely; and so she didn't much care what she said to Will that morning. Besides, the thought of giving the man a job that would keep him out of ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... see nought but vanity in beauty, And nought but weakness in a fond caress, And pitied men whose views of Christian duty Allowed indulgence in such foolishness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?"—"'Arry" in the Times. No doubt it is becoming in an artist to leave all criticism unanswered; it would be foolishness in a schoolboy to resent stuff of this sort. Whistler replied; and in his replies to ignorance and insensibility, seasoned with malice, he is said to have been ill-mannered and caddish. He was; ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... her. The crowd was a- whoopin' him up. In the middle o' the uproar she kneels down. 'O Lord,' says she, 'I pray Thee to soften the heart of pore George Spragg, and give me, a weak woman, the strength to prevail against his everlastin' ignorance and foolishness!' George got the colour of a beet, but he quit his foolin'. Yes sir, she prays for 'em, and she coaxes 'em, an' she never knows when she's beat; but they'll be too much for her. She's losin' her appetite, an' she don't sleep good. We won't ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became almost synonymous with genteel foolishness. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... faith of which he was chief minister and guardian. Only the conviction with which men like Clemens and Origen, who were friends of his wife, declared that the doctrine to which they adhered was the only right one—was, in fact, the truth itself—seemed to the skeptic "foolishness." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... more in the way of learning state secrets than I am, Orme," I answered sarcastically, being rather irritated at the course of events and his foolishness. "What have you heard?" ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... foolishness," snapped Captain Mayo "Your old martingale spikes hooked me up. Heave to and ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... sir. I merely think it possible she may see this Gibbie occasionally; and I know he worships the cow-boy: it is a positive feature of his foolishness, and I wish it were ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... pity. "That unfortunate prince," said the Emperor, "was good, wise, and learned. At another period he would have been an excellent king, but he was worth nothing in a time of revolution. He was lacking in resolution and firmness, and could resist neither the foolishness nor the insolence of the Jacobins. The courtiers delivered him up to the Jacobins, and they led him to the scaffold. In his place I would have mounted my horse, and, with a few concessions on one side, and a few cracks of my whip on the other, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Greeks probably would not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness. Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the thing would have been lost, had the sting which they contained ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... cut out that cursing; it hurts my ears." He sat silent a moment looking straight at me, and I was not sure how he had taken it. Then he said: "Maybe you been kinder to me saying that, than I been to you. That's the first time I ever been call down for cursin'. I don't mean nothin' by it; it's just foolishness and I goin' try to cut ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... that you like this "St. Mark's" so much, and do not feel as if I had lost power of mind. I think the illness has told on me more in laziness than foolishness. I feel as if there was as much in me as ever, but it is too much trouble to say it. And I find myself reconciled to staying in bed of a morning to a quite woeful extent. I have not been affected so much by melancholy, being very thankful ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... down upon him with tears and pleadings that he would not fail to redeem the Schumanns by becoming a Great Man. Poetry was foolishness and all musicians were poor—there were a hundred of them in Zwickau who lived on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... daughter with a stern eye. "Don't encourage her in her foolishness, Grace," she said; "each of you should marry and settle ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... good, we realise another and very obvious reason for the non-fulfilment of a large proportion of the wishes we lay before the throne of God, whose goodness is as much attested by what He denies to our foolishness as by what He grants to our entreaties. And how numerous are the prayers which reflection and an awakened moral sense rule out of court: prayers which ask God to do for us by special intervention what we ought to do for ourselves by our own effort and industry; ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the Howrah treasure? Of the rubies? Of the pearls? Of the emeralds? Of the bars of gold? It is foolishness, of course; we who are modern-minded see the crime of hoarding all that wealth, and adding to it, for twenty generations. Have you ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... not out for foolishness, neither are you. Oh, yes, I know I'm suspected, and there's folks, especially our friend Smallbones, would like to hang me right off. Well, get busy and do the hanging, I shan't resist, and you'll all live to regret it; ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... just laughs at my foolishness and gives me an order to lick a crowd that outnumbers me, ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... but he went and sat down on the step of the door, and was just beginning to think what the foolishness was in his way of asking his father, when a little bird came hopping along in the yard. He ran in to ask his mother to give him some milk to feed the bird with. She smiled, and told him milk was good for kittens, but not for birds; and she gave him some crumbs of bread. Rollo ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... passion in the park yester-morning, I had not disputed with Colonel MacKay. It still seems to me that he has been treated with over much kindness in this matter of promotion, in which—it may be their foolishness—soldiers are apt to be jealous, and I have been in some degree neglected. But I most frankly confess that I have been in the wrong in doing what I did, since it was more your Highness's business than mine to have ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... these people ever have a cent they can afford to spend on foolishness like this," Helen explained to Dr. Watkins, "but they aren't the sort of people you can give things to openly, so we thought we'd take this opportunity," and she smiled happily and went ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... . . took especial pains to tell us that it was no fault of ours, but the porangi or 'foolishness' ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... He got three years," said Jim. "I guess he's reflecting on the foolishness of using matches ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... it was only you and the doctor that saw my foolishness," continued the other, still in a low voice. "Other people might have talked, but I knew that you were a reliable man, Smith. And you won't talk about it in the future, I'm quite certain of that. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." 4:17. To refuse to do a good thing known unto us when we have opportunity is wrong and displeasing to God. Solomon says, "The thought of foolishness is sin." "In a multitude of words there wanteth not sin." The apostle John clearly and positively defines sin in these words: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... foolishness is really gone," she continued eagerly. "I know that whatever happened to poor Roger, it was not you who killed him. Even if I heard his ghost calling again to-night, I should have no fear. I can't think why I ever wanted to hurt ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... superstition was ascribed to the special judgment of God. Not only was the King of England, as he had ever been, stupid and perverse: but even the counsel of the politic King of France was turned into foolishness. Whatever wisdom and energy could do William did. Those obstacles which no wisdom or energy could have overcome his enemies themselves ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is reckless bravado; it is worse than foolishness," said Beverley, not feeling her mood. "What can two or three ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... teeth, while the mares stood back, wondering, in a high-headed semi-circle and the grey kept nudging at his flank, saying very plainly: "Enough of this nonsense. These gangling creatures, all legs and foolishness, are not of our kind, O my master. Let us be gone!" But Alcatraz heeded her not. He shook the gate back ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... my way to try and redeem myself is only an attempt to patch up the broken pieces. The fact remains that the army has no use for me. I have been dismissed from West Point, in disgrace. It was a girl who brought it about, or rather my own foolishness over a girl. And before that there was much that led up to it. It is hard to write about it, but in these memoirs I mean to tell everything—the good, with the bad. And as I deserve no ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... parent didn't approve, no doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on 'daughter's' face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt and she did write 'Mrs.' to save him! Taking them in retrospect, it's a question if the thing they called sacrifice wasn't plain damn foolishness. Why, hell, Jack, d'you mean to say that the professor and his musty European customs—oh, I can't be profane enough!—the English language is trifling and inadequate! But I'm going to take a hand in this ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... remarks as to the foolishness of all automatic writing, must of necessity be made by those who are ignorant of this spiritual law, or whose experience of such messages is ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates |
