"Sarcasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had so well approved his valour in the late war, said that she would eat all he had killed there: and observing the prince take delight in Benedick's conversation, she called him "the prince's jester." This sarcasm sunk deeper into the mind of Benedick than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard, knowing himself to be a brave man: but there is nothing that great wits so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gathering about her a political clique. There were card-parties and dances; there were Christy's Minstrels and the Hutchinson family; and some of the more intellectual circles had conversaziones where the best talent displayed itself. Still, Barnum could not be crowded out. No sarcasm withered him; and his variety was infinite. It was a safe place for mothers to go and take their children. The men had formed several ambitious clubs, and were ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... easily be divined of what nature was her influence and how she gained and held her power over the king. She won Louis XIV. entirely by her sensual charms, provoked him by her imperious exactions, her ungovernable fits of temper, and her daring sarcasm; always extravagant and unreasonable, she talked constantly of balls and fetes, the glories of court and its scandals. Most exacting, yet never satisfied, she had no regard for the interests or honor of the weak king, to whose ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... quotation marks, and it would be so funny in him to make the mistake! For you know I have not much of the—of that sort of thing about me—I am not a poet—poetess, author, you know." Said Miriam in her blandest tone, without a touch of sarcasm in her voice, "Oh, if he has ever seen you, the mistake is natural!" If I had spoken, my voice would have carried a sting in it. So I waited until I could calmly say, "You know him well, of course." "No, I never saw him before!" she answered with ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... he bit him, too!" the policeman suggested, with heavy sarcasm. He could not forgive this pretty girl ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... argument." All that he says, "the very words, and to the self-same tune," would prove just as well that whatever is, is wrong, as that whatever is, is right. The Dunciad has splendid passages, but in general it is dull, heavy, and mechanical. The sarcasm already quoted on Settle, the Lord Mayor's poet, (for at that time there was a city as well ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... not always avoidant of the obscene. For the most part, they are as ignorant of the large onward push of human thought as if they were farmers in some remote county of Arkansas. And yet they affect, at all times, an amusing omniscience. To "know it all" is a phrase beloved as sarcasm by their nimble vernacular, and though this (like "Come off!" and "Look here, what are you giving us?") is a form of speech incessantly on their lips, one is prone sometimes to reflect how amazing is the meagreness of real knowledge which their "knowing it all" piteously represents. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... and he were not familiars;' and the fact that Raleigh would sometimes write twice and thrice to him in one day, and on a single occasion at least, four times, proves that Cecil had a right to use this mild sarcasm. Several months before, Raleigh had attempted by his manifesto entitled The Spanish Alarum to stir up the Government to be in full readiness to guard against a revengeful invasion of England by her old enemy. He had thought out ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Curly's sarcasm achieved the laugh intended, and, as a result of his satisfaction, he flung his last half-dollar on ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... I ask the name of this lady who knows more about my own house than I do?" asked Miss Grayson with unconcealed sarcasm. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... petulant instead of peevish, and cendree instead of sandy, passed the tedious moments of waiting in a running commentary upon the idiosyncrasies and oddities of the people and refreshments of the past hours, with a verve which she fondly believed to be a combination of sarcasm and cynicism, but which, in reality, was the kernel of the nut of spitefulness, hanging from the withering bough of ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... said vulgar—apologetic pretext that Jesus was using ad hominem arguments, or "accommodating" his better knowledge to popular ignorance, as well as to point out the inadmissibility of the other alternative, that he shared the popular ignorance. And to those who hold the latter view sarcasm is dealt ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... answer. His new-born energy, his pride, his sarcasm, had successively vanished; dead, passive melancholy resumed its empire over him. Mr. Halifax regarded him ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... archangel retaliate defiance, and tower, in swift alternate flights, to higher and higher pitches of exultant scorn, Milton puts forth all his strength, and brings into action a whole armoury of sarcasm and insult whetted and polished from its earlier prosaic exercise. Even the grotesque element in his humour is not wholly excluded from the Paradise Lost; it has full scope, for once, in the episodical ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... no amount of description, can depict the wrath of an author in a paroxysm of mortified vanity, nor the energy which he discovers when stung by the poisoned darts of sarcasm; but, on the other hand, the man that is roused to fighting-fury by a personal attack usually subsides very promptly. The more phlegmatic race, who take these things quietly, lay their account with the oblivion which speedily overtakes the spiteful article. These are the truly courageous ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... animation of manner, high physical spirits, a witty, odd, racy vein of conversation, determined assurance, and profound confidence in his own resources. He was fond of schemes, stratagems, and plots—they amused and excited him—his power of sarcasm, and of argument, too, was great, and he usually obtained an astonishing influence over those with whom he was brought in contact. His high spirits and a most happy frankness of bearing carried off and disguised his leading vices of character, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the first man of the time, and he subscribed his mite for the erection of a statue to him. It was the satire and mockery in Voltaire which irritated Rousseau more than the doctrines or denial of doctrine which they cloaked; in his eyes sarcasm was always the veritable dialect of the evil power. It says something for the sincerity of his efforts after equitable judgment, that he should have had the patience to discern some of the fundamental merit of the most remorseless and effective mocker that ever made superstition look mean, and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... gain!"[1117] A little later, his letter to Buttafuoco, deputy in the Constituent Assembly and principal agent in the annexation to France, is one long strain of renewed, concentrated hatred, which, after at first trying to restrain it within the bounds of cold sarcasm, ends in boiling over, like red-hot lava, in a torrent of scorching invective.—From the age of fifteen, at the Academy and afterwards in his regiment, he finds refuge in imagination in the past of his island;[1118] he recounts its history, his mind dwells upon it for many years, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... both Houses, after some sharp resistance in the Lords', gravely enacted that the importation of Irish beef into England was "a nuisance," to be abated. From this period most probably dates the famous English sarcasm against ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Secretary, 'can there be between states whose staples are substantially identical? Sugar can not be exchanged for sugar, nor cotton for cotton.' And another sentence is deserving remembrance for its truthful sarcasm: 'It seems the necessity of faction in every country, that whenever it acquires sufficient boldness to inaugurate revolution, it then alike forgets the counsels of prudence, and stifles the instincts of patriotism, and becomes a suitor to foreign courts for aid and assistance ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with sarcasm. "The Red Stack Company will libel him, and if the old man doesn't, me an' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... exclaimed Miss Abby, her sarcasm entirely unveiled. "Alvord Hendricks would walk the plank if you ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... herself, who, indeed, was a general favorite, began to think that, although in point of circumstances she was by no means a match for him, Hycy might do still worse. It is true, his wife was outrageous at the bare mention of it; but Jemmy, along with a good deal of blunt sarcasm, had a resolution of his own, and not unfrequently took a kind of good-natured and shrewd delight in opposing her wishes whenever he found them to be unreasonable. For several months past he could not put his foot out of the ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... to find you in such a mind," replied Boleslas, with a sarcasm which distorted his handsome face into a smile of atrocious hatred. The good-nature displayed by her cut him to the heart, and he continued, already less self-possessed: "It is indeed an explanation which I think ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... a torrent of ridicule and sarcasm this mode of conduct exposes her; or how exceedingly cold and hollow that ceremony must be, which is not the language of a warm heart. She does not reflect how insipid those smiles are, which indicate no internal pleasantry; nor how awkward those graces, which ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... him that has a sense for the God-like. Often, notwithstanding, was I blamed, and by half-strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness (Haerte), my Indifferentism towards men; and the seemingly ironic tone I had adopted, as my favourite dialect in conversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was but as a buckram case, wherein I had striven to envelop myself; that so my own poor Person might live safe there, and in all friendliness, being no longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... said the boy, the tone of affected sarcasm laid aside, and that of injured pride substituted in its room, "Tell him that my soul revolts at the obscure lot he recommends to me. I am determined to enter my father's profession, the army, unless my grandfather chooses to ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... his whimsical peculiarities, he had not the slightest desire to leave home. On such sons and daughters of the natives as were diligent in their pursuit of musical studies, he poured out the whole of his sarcasm. His chief, his darling ambition was to wean them away from their fondness for worthless music and clap-trap performances of it. He did not succeed: you were not considered educated unless you could play the piano, and in the homes of these ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... think of something to say, when Burns' charmer—she was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated "sandwich depots," I believe—turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself, observed with some sarcasm: "What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame? ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and maybe had a dangerous tendency to giving and taking too much confidence; and that he was disposed to dwell upon a mountain, and would be the better off for an occasional taking-down with a shade of good-humored sarcasm. He was still boyish about some things, and the speculative men in public life sought to beguile him. He was growing all the time, though. He was a student, and was brainy and generous, and laughed at "able articles" even if they had ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... weapon which she used with greater power than another it was that of sarcasm. She could be sarcastic to the point of cruelty. Soon her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone: she was in her element. She was writing quickly, for bare life, and she was writing well. The paper would make the New Woman sit up, and would make the old woman rejoice. It would be ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... withering sarcasm. He answered, evenly, "Looks that way. I suppose they figure a man ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... act, the result of physical disorder, with an act of deliberate disobedience. The weakness which resigns its authority In order to spare itself the care of a child's education engenders for life the spirit of insubordination. The humiliating and unjust reproach, the stinging sarcasm, wound the child in its tenderest feelings;—but these are not the forms of cruelty and wrong which fall within reach of the law. It is unable to interpose between the parents and the child, except in case of an actual and serious offence, and for the rest it must rely upon the affection ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... the water's edge and gazed across defiantly at the little boys, who were clustered together at the far end of the pond. They were not her match at sarcasm and so were forced to answer with inarticulate jeers. For a few seconds no more words were exchanged. Then one of the boys ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore
... of their human qualities. Their teaching is borne along on the tones of conversation. They know that well-modulated tones of voice contribute to the culture and well-being of the school. Should a teacher ever indulge in screeching, nagging, hectoring, badgering, or sarcasm, she would find herself ostracized. Such things are simply not done in this school. Hence, she would soon realize that this school is no place for her and would voluntarily resign. The school is simply ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... grown-up infant. They cheered each other, and they teased each other. Stalking side by side over the ridged fallows, Darrell would sometimes pour forth his whole soul, as a poet does to his muse; and at Fairthorn's abrupt interruption or rejoinder, turn round on him with fierce objurgation or withering sarcasm, or what the flute-player abhorred more than all else, a truculent quotation from Horace, which drove Fairthorn away into some vanishing covert or hollow, out of which Darrell had to entice him, sure that, in return, Fairthorn would take a sly occasion to send into his side ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he agreed. To her surprise the girl could find no hint of sarcasm in the words, nor was there anything to indicate the "desperate character" in the way he leaned forward to stroke his horse's mane, and remove a wisp of hair from beneath the headstall. It was hard to maintain her air of cold reserve with this soft-voiced, grave-eyed young ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... she said; and he accepted the assertion without a suspicion of sarcasm. She rose when she had spoken, drew the lid of the bureau down over her papers, and locked it deliberately; but the precaution rather flattered him ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... pointed to the door leading to the more distant apartments, and in the short laugh which accompanied his last words there was sarcasm—almost hatred. At the same moment he met ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... with one day's startling break, to be the sole preoccupation of the defenders. The enemy, even on this first day of January, were not willing to leave the garrison in doubt as to their presence, although, despite the possible touch of sarcasm, there was a grim sort of friendliness in their reminder. It again took the form of blind shells—this time fired from the Free State batteries—inscribed "Compliments of the Season." ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... strongly, inasmuch as it seemed to signify that he was setting his back up against the Lufton-Grantly alliance. She had been pretty sure that he would do so in the event of his suspecting that a plot was being laid to catch him; and now it almost appeared that he did suspect such a plot. Why else that sarcasm as to Griselda doing ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... was not directed to the accomplishment of partisan purposes, gave him much consideration. He was incapable, from a weak constitution, of sustaining, at great length, the vivacity and energy with which he commenced his speeches; and therefore, their sharp sarcasm and great power, made them appear more considerable in print than in the delivery. Even after he had enlisted all his energies in the detestable scheme which he is now trying to fulfill, his prudence halted at ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... brown coat trimmed with gold braid. His features were intellectual, his words few, his eye piercing; his mouth, or rather his lips, were altogether too thin and compressed to ever smile; if he occasionally gave vent to sarcasm upon what had happened, his face became still more serious than usual. He had also very polished manners and showed his familiarity with the best society. His courage, discretion and coolness were such that Monsieur de Louvois had already frequently employed ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... can say what you wish. You would not let me go to mass. You would not let me fulfill my duty to God!" she said with such sarcasm as she ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... for Greece, if the choice had fallen on one less full of Hellenic sympathies, and if the general despatched thither had been a man, who would neither have been bribed by delicate flattery nor stung by pungent sarcasm; who would not amidst literary and artistic reminiscences have overlooked the pitiful condition of the constitutions of the Hellenic states; and who, while treating Hellas according to its deserts, would have spared the Romans the trouble ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... tone of a man supremely bored, but presently warming a little, he explained his work to me. He was very simple and convincing. Now and then there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Presently I found myself hot with shame at our ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... She coloured at the sarcasm. "Why not?" she retorted. "Let them have a taste of their own methods! They know the kind of pressure that makes men yield—when they feel it they will know ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was your professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very limited function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with sarcasm, 'I did not so far travel out of the record as to ask the gentleman ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... two before to prove how much better it would be for me to get off three days before Collections and so obtain another whole week in the bosom of my family at Cannes! No doubt Jowett's system of controlling the recalcitrant portions of the College through sarcasm was well meant and occasionally fairly successful. Taking it as a whole, however, I felt then, as I feel now, that sarcasm is the one weapon which it is never right or useful to use in the case of persons ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... walk, and come back again: but let me know what time you intend to be done, that I may be ready to a minute; for in matters of business Whiteley, you know I like to be punctual." W. understood this sarcasm, and turning to Mills, poured forth such a volley of whim and oddity as I think never fell from the lips of any other man in this world. When he was in this vein of humour, he had, in addition to the comic ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... from sarcasm to genuine anxiety. "You'll be glad—but you'll be glad at home. You can't come back to college—you told me so yourself—unless you are elected editor. That's why I called you out just now. Did your uncle really say that he was disappointed in ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... comes into its cell. Presentation copies by authors were among the chronic torments of his existence. While the complacent author was perhaps pluming himself on his liberality in making the judicious gift, the recipient was pouring out all his sarcasm, which was not feeble or slight, on the odious object, and wondering why an author could have entertained against him so steady and enduring a malice as to take the trouble of writing and printing all that rubbish with ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... forms always suggests infinitely more than it expresses, and at once inspires and kindles the intelligence which is to comprehend it; if that intelligence, which is perhaps only another name for sympathy, does not exist, then, in Byron's happy sarcasm:— ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... crouch and bend as if he were going to spring upon the audience, a long, skinny finger would be shaken before their faces, or pointed as if to drive his words into their hearts. His speech was a torrent of epigram, sarcasm, invective. He was bitter; if you knew nothing about the man or his cause, you would find this repellent and shocking. You had to know what his life had been—an unceasing conflict with oppression; he had got his Socialist education in jail, where he had been sent for ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... sauter la coupe or couper la saut, or some such mystery of iniquity, I really cannot tell which): Sir Richard, a stout dark man, the patriarch of the party, glossily wigged upon his head, and imperially tufted on his chin, retorts with a pungent sarcasm, calmly and coolly uttered; that hot-headed fool Silliphant, clearly quite intoxicated, backs his cousin Mynton's view of the case by the cogent argument of a dice-box at Sir Richard's head—and at once all is struggle, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the sentence may have possessed—and witty we must suppose it was, since Plutarch evidently thinks it a capital joke. In corroboration of this interpretation of an allusion which has a little perplexed the commentators, we may observe, that ten years before, Pericles had judged a sarcasm upon the age of Elpinice the best way to silence her importunities. The anecdote is twice told by Plutarch, in vit. Cim., c. 14, and in ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... majority of the House of Commons were his followers. Lloyd George certainly had his bad times then. Sometimes his facts would be proved awry and his arguments fallacious and he would be harried with merciless sarcasm. He would, in effect, be smashed to pieces. To the amazement of every one he refused to understand that he was smashed. After any and every attack he would be swiftly on his feet, hurling forth fresh accusatory words and ignoring the punishment he had just received—would be himself ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... fondness for the science, nor of researches into its abstruse doctrines; that he seemed, indeed, to hold it and its administration in slight estimation. The best definition of law, he said, was 'whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.' This sarcasm was intended full as much for the courts as for ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... like an Assyrian Prince; through life he retained his somewhat Asiatic appearance. His eyes were slightly narrowed, his black hair curled lightly over an extremely broad forehead. He spoke little and often in brusque phrase. For this reason he was frequently misunderstood, as the irony and sarcasm with which he sometimes spoke did not tend to make friends. But this attitude was only turned toward those who did not comprehend him and his ideals, or who endeavored to falsify what he believed in ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... on the table. He picked it up and handed it to her, gravely, without a bow, without a shade of triumph or the smallest suspicion of sarcasm. There was perhaps the nucleus of a great man in Otto von Holzen, after all, for there was no smallness in his mind. He opened the door, and stood aside for her ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... considered Le Fanu as a ballad writer and poet. As a press writer he is still most honourably remembered for his learning and brilliancy, and the power and point of his sarcasm, which long made the 'Dublin Evening Mail' one of the most formidable of Irish press critics; but let us now pass to the consideration of him in the capacity of a novelist, and in particular as the author of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of outlandish customs, costumes, and dialects observed among our emigrant population from that land are little noticed, and never regarded as marking districts of the fatherland from which they severally sprung. One of the most fruitful themes of pleasant humor and biting sarcasm in our periodical literature and in the popular mouth, is the ignorance betrayed by enlightened foreigners, and especially foreign journalists, in regard to the geography of our country; as though ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... you? Indeed, sir. I think you did wrong. The poor brute did not know what he was doing, I dare say, and probably he has been a faithful friend." The girl cast her mischievous eyes towards her companions, who snickered again. The old man was not conscious of the sarcasm. He only saw reproach. His face straightened, and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... marvel at your misunderstanding such explicit and clear-cut orders," said Leonard, with calm sarcasm. "That will do, sergeant, so far as you are concerned." And Haney walked away, well content that when Paine and the wagon got back there would be something more for "the ould man" to explain, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... England had seen. But if all men were inferior to the prime minister in majesty and fulness of conception, the man to whom I now listened had no superior in readiness of retort, in aptness of illustration—that mixture of sport and satire, of easy jest and subtle sarcasm, which forms the happiest talent for the miscellaneous uses of debate. If Pitt moved forward like the armed man of chivalry, or rather like the main body of the battle—for never man was more entitled to the appellation of a "host in himself"—never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... no ulterior idea. He always spent his monthly allowance by the second Tuesday after the first Monday, and sulked through a period of famine and debt until the next month. It was now the third Tuesday and he was disposed to sarcasm. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... sometimes, and contributes a sarcasm or two on the cramming system of the college. He takes a constitutional to Summertown every day on the least frequented side of the road, that he may avoid being spoken to. And as to his ways of living, he and I happen to have the same ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... magnificent furniture, and smokes. He has talked much to the world, and it has heard him. Flung into life without a friend, governed only by the will of a race born to command, he has struggled through sneers and sarcasm to eminence. Men fear him now, women flatter, nearly all envy; yet he is alone. He knows this; he knows that in all the laughing groups who enjoy this wine-drinking and turkey-eating day his name has not been mentioned once. Nature ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... festivals and amusements. Thucydides made an effective speech; but Pericles immediately rose and offered to execute the buildings at his own expense, if the citizens would allow him to put his own name upon them instead of theirs. The sarcasm was successful. Thucydides was ostracized, and to the end of his life, Pericles reigned the undisputed master of the public policy of Athens. During the rest of his career "there was," says the historian Thucydides, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... telling, you can at least bear that of listening. Remember that knowing—knowing what you know, or at least what you have heard—you could come here and propose marriage to me!' This she said with a cold, cutting sarcasm which sounded like the rasping of a roughly-sharpened knife through raw flesh. Harold groaned in spirit; he felt a weakness which began at his heart to steal through him. It took all his manhood to bear himself erect. He dreaded what was coming, as of old the once- tortured ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... experience is more accentuated than it is elsewhere, and is flung in our face with less compunction. The pieces which give name to the volume are only fifteen in number, but the spirit which inspires them is very frequently repeated in other parts of the collection. That spirit is one of mocking sarcasm, and it acts in every case by presenting a beautifully draped figure of illusion, from which the poet, like a sardonic showman, twitches away the robe that he may display a skeleton beneath it. We can with little danger ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... more delicate meal, the younger of the two gentlemen cast upon me a look of latent truculence, such as I have often remarked among my compatriots of the South. He seemed to detect an unexpressed sarcasm in the contrast between my gentle refection and his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... mountains where the wanderer is, and seeks him. And this, couched in veiled form, is the great mystery of the divine love, the incarnation and sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord. Here is the answer by anticipation to the sarcasm that is often levelled at evangelical Christianity: 'You must think a good deal of human nature, and must have a very arrogant notion of the inhabitant of this little speck that floats in the great sea of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... only just in time for dinner, and found Armine enduring, with a touching resignation learnt in Miss Parsons's school, the sarcasm of Bobus for having omitted to prepare his studies. The boy could neither eat nor entirely conceal the chills that were running over him; and though he tried to silence his brother's objurgations by bringing out his books afterwards, his cheeks burnt, he emitted ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I am worth," was my reply, and I did not at the time think that even the Vicomte, whose faculties were keener in such matters, saw the sarcasm ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... taint with the venom of his envy, the preparations made by the virtuous and highly distinguished lady at whose shrine this humble tribute of admiration was offered.' This last was a piece of biting sarcasm against the INDEPENDENT, who, in consequence of not having been invited at all, had been, through four numbers, affecting to sneer at the whole affair, in his very largest type, with all the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... state (it seems) is requisite to redress the inequalities of this life. And can I go to the Supreme Judge, and tell Him that I deserve more happiness than He has granted me in this life?' Do you not recollect this?—or has this sarcasm escaped you?" ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... dumplings. This brilliant poet, with his marvelous mastery of German lyric tones, expressed a wide range of poetic inspiration; but he loved particularly to conceive of himself as an apostle of liberty, an outpost of the revolutionary army, and none so well as he could tip the barb with biting sarcasm and satire. Heine's personality was full of seemingly inconsistent traits. He was both fanciful and rational, serious and flippant, tender and cynical, reverent and impious; and he could be at once a patriot and an alien. He was, to use his own phrase, an "unfrocked ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Purdee, expectant of a cuffing, stood his ground more doubtfully still under the insidious thrusts of this strange weapon, sarcasm. He knew that they were intended to hurt; he was wounded primarily in the intention, but the exact lesion he could not locate. He could meet a threat with a bold face, and return a blow with the best. But he was mortified in this failure of understanding, and perplexity cowed him as ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... noticed by her enemy and made the target of her wit; but this time the sarcasm failed to produce its effect upon the Syrian, for, instead of laughing, he grew grave, and whispered something which seemed to Barine a reproof or a warning. Iras's reply was merely a contemptuous shrug ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... heed to the sarcasm. She had not heard it. She was thinking of something else. It seemed that she had something to say, but found the utterance difficult. Once or twice she looked up at Dick Linforth and looked down again and played with the fringe of her cloak. In ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... childish sarcasm, the religious sarcasm, of Voltaire with the irresistible irony of the German philosopher whose influence ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... very sooth!" said Phoebe, with merry sarcasm. "And was it, then, Guy who brought me these same lines of Jacques the melancholy?" And she pointed to ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... ago Mr. Asquith referred with sarcasm and reproof to those who talk of peace. But, for once, his meaning was not clear. If he meant that to suggest peace to the enemy at this stage is both dangerous and ridiculous, he will be approved by the nation. But ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... out by what process of chemical or mechanical action so remarkable a transformation could have been accomplished, he became aware that his uncle, old Mr Shirley, was standing in the middle of the cave regarding him with a look of mingled sarcasm and pity. He observed, too, that his uncle was not made of gold, like the people around him, but was habited in a yeomanry uniform. Mr Shirley had been a yeoman twenty years before his nephew was ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bill for suspending the completion of the Army Reserve. If they failed, he would return to Walmer for another kind of contest. The joint assault by Fox and Pitt against the Ministry on 23rd April produced a great sensation, the speech of Pitt being remarkable for its suppressed sarcasm and thinly veiled charges of inefficiency. As a call to arms, it stands without a rival. Ministers were utterly beaten in argument, and escaped defeat only by thirty-seven votes. Addington became alarmed, and advised the King, who was now convalescent, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... would cost them. Seven dollars, the man said; and that night came Jurgis, grim and determined, requesting that the agent would be good enough to inform him, once for all, as to all the expenses they were liable for. The deed was signed now, he said, with sarcasm proper to the new way of life he had learned—the deed was signed, and so the agent had no longer anything to gain by keeping quiet. And Jurgis looked the fellow squarely in the eye, and so the fellow wasted no time ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... make the most of his few gifts. Life was no longer without zest. His natural indolence increased with the size of his great body as the years passed, and his slow whimsical humour became his strongest characteristic. He felt it a fine point in the sarcasm of his destiny that he should at last have become a hero and be regarded with admiration for his conversational abilities, but he bore his honours discreetly, and found both moral and ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... After the Revolution, while the title of the new sovereign was not yet secure, the Clergy were specially enjoined, that however else they might vary their prayer or exhortation to prayer before the sermon, they were in any case to mention the King by name. It was said—whether in sarcasm or as a grave reality—that the semi-Jacobite parsons, of whom there were many, found satisfaction in discovering a mode by which they could 'show at once their duty and their disgust'[1198] in a manner unexceptionally ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Ida; "this day six months I shall be prepared to become your wife, Mr. Cossey. I believe," she added with a flash of bitter sarcasm, "it is the time usually allowed for ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... wild Radical. There was no leaven of Chartism in Lord Brougham, though a very considerable dash of eccentricity; and really, for a man who had been contending so many years in the Opposition, and who had attained to so thorough a command of sarcasm, he learned to enact the courtier wonderfully well. Neither 'Tompkins' nor 'Jenkins' had as yet manifested their contempt for the aristocracy; nor had the 'man well stricken in years' written anonymous letters ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... and of all the highest qualities of dramatic art, is unapproachable. But ours is a learned court, Master Nicholas, and therefore we have a learned poet; but a right good fellow is Ben Jonson, and a boon companion, though somewhat prone to sarcasm, as you will find if you drink with him. Over his cups he will rail at courts and courtiers in good set terms, I promise you, and I myself have come in for his gibes. However, I love him none the less for his quips, for ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a man to be accused of sarcasm by the other sex, and Staniford was not superior to the soft pleasure of the reproach. "Do you think I make other people feel ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... his misfits has too long been the object of affectionate sarcasm and the subject of caricature to be unfamiliar to the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... the doctor, laughing, but with a touch of mingled sarcasm and bitterness in his voice, "I think your committee can't do better than advise the working-women of England generally to make their homes more attractive to their husbands, and ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... significantly. She ignored the implied sarcasm altogether. There was so much meaning in her reply that Loo turned to look at her. She ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Sammy" who was the first to recover himself. Probably he remembered the power he prided himself upon wielding over the weaker sex. He laid aside his pipe for a moment and tried sarcasm,—an adaptation of the same sarcasm he had tried upon ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... You hear?" The old trapper's voice was stinging with sarcasm. "They nev' fin' heem. But the woman she was in a taxi. Ah, oui. She could pass, just at the moment. She could put in the mind of the jury the fact that there was a quarrel, while she preten' to help M'sieu Houston. But the taxi-driver—no, they ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... been war, I wonder if I should have had the moral courage to keep out of the fight?' I looked into his face, and, seeing there his character, answered with dryness, 'Oh! I suspect you would.' He was too complaisant to appreciate the sarcasm. God made little as well as great things! I suppose we should love all humanity, even if it be in the spirit of a ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... unattainable information, and that 'Mr Able' meant anyone able to furnish it. It is not exactly a satisfactory solution, and as to the reference to Tiverton, though it may be complimentary, one doubts whether it does not carry more than a suspicion of sarcasm. ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, we do not think that she ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... self-importance to note her sarcasm, the young man beamed with self-satisfaction ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... I entirely agree with your view as to the reason why we are put here," observed Heath, without a trace of obvious sarcasm. Nevertheless, the mere words stung Charmian's ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... trace of sarcasm in this outburst? Serena was, for the moment, suspicious. She tried her hardest to look ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he had the high art to keep his style direct, unaffected, almost severe. No frills, no literary graces, no flashes of wit except an occasional restrained touch of sarcasm: the writing was in the purest style and of a classic simplicity. The typical reader of The Patriot had a friendly and rather patronizing feeling for the editorials: they were generally deemed quite ordinary, "common as an old shoe" (with an approving accent from the commentator), ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ask you, when he comes down to breakfast dry of mouth, and touchy of temper— That gives him pause, and silences that scintillating barb of sarcasm on the tip of his tongue, With which he meant to impale you? It is the sweet aroma of the coffee-pot—the thrilling thought ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... nostrils and replaced the princess in his waistcoat pocket,—always on his left side. A gentleman of the "good" century (in distinction from the "grand" century) could alone have invented that compromise between contemptuous silence and a sarcasm which might not have been understood. He accepted poor players and knew how to make the best of them. His delightful equability of temper ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... poet was moved to sarcasm when he sang of "the willows so green, so charming and rurally true." Surely they were greener than any other trees we had in town; for we had almost none, save a few dark evergreens. Well, the place was charming in its way, and as rurally true as anything could ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... resentment. She disdained to satisfy so insolent a questioner, and even indulged herself in certain oblique hints calculated to strengthen his suspicions. For some time she described his folly and presumption in terms of the most ludicrous sarcasm, and then, suddenly changing her style, bid him never let her see him more except upon the footing of the most distant acquaintance, as she was determined never again to subject herself to so unworthy a treatment. She was happy that he had at length disclosed ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... putting them to good account. M. Bratiano's appropriate attitude may be described as statuesque. Occasionally his Press organs commented upon the manifestations of the interventionists in words barbed with bitter sarcasm and utilitarian maxims. "Roumania's blood and money," the Independence Roumaine explained, "must be spent only in the furtherance of Roumania's interest." Her cause must be dissociated from that of the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Plekoskaya said with mild irritation and sarcasm. "I merely bend at the knees and hips and have a lunch of a weight adequate enough to keep me from floating off my chair and rushing about seeking trouble. Of course it takes years of experience to learn how to do ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... sarcasm which is essentially the weapon of a cultured man, are crude. First, my attainments, my classical and literary knowledge, blurred, perhaps, by immoderate drinking—which reminds me that before my soul went ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... story!" put in Mr. Jones, in a tone of sarcasm. "How many more twenty-dollar bills have you got at your house? I wasn't aware that your mother was ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... length he spoke; offering some objection to a point insisted upon by R., and giving his reasons in detail. To these the Baron replied at length (still maintaining his exaggerated tone of sentiment) and concluding, in what I thought very bad taste, with a sarcasm and a sneer. The hobby of Hermann now took the bit in his teeth. This I could discern by the studied hair-splitting farrago of his rejoinder. His last words I distinctly remember. "Your opinions, allow me to say, Baron von Jung, although in the main correct, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Sir Mungo fixed on Nigel his quick, sharp, grey eye, watching the effect of his sarcasm as keenly as the surgeon, in a delicate operation, remarks the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... [341:1] This sarcasm on the writings of moralists is, in general, extremely just; but had Talleyrand continued long enough in England, he might have found an honourable exception in the second volume of Dr. Paley's Moral Philosophy; in which both Secret Influence, and all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... upon the whole species as 'made in the likeness of God,'" by deserting the hall in a body, or using some more emphatic form of protest against the corruption of youth by "the vilest and beastliest paradox ever vented in ancient or modern times amongst Pagans or Christians." In his finest vein of sarcasm, the writer expresses his surprise that the meeting did not instantly resolve itself into a "Gorilla Emancipation Society," or propose to hear a lecture from an apostle of Mormonism; "even this would be a less offensive, mischievous, and inexcusable exhibition than was made ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Miss Browns, and their party, saw the approaching danger, and endeavoured to avert it by ridicule and sarcasm. Neither the old men nor the old women could read their books, now they had got them, said the three Miss Browns. Never mind; they could learn, replied Mrs. Johnson Parker. The children couldn't read either, suggested the three Miss Browns. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... scares her, and she visits her resentment on her worshipper. If he enjoys a kind farewell overnight, he atones for it by the coldest greeting in the morning. There are days when the buttercup runs amuck among her adorers, days of snubbing and sarcasm and bitterness. The poor little bird beats savagely against the wires that are closing her round. And then there are days of pure abandon and coquetry and fun. The buttercup flirts, but she flirts in such an open ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... George made his allusion to personal conduct one of her two hands dropped from his arm, and now, as she repeated the words, there was a little sting of sarcasm in her voice. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... uncle would have wilted under such bitter sarcasm, for never have I seen anything more malevolent than Bonaparte's whole aspect, and I trembled for him. But he seemed not greatly afraid of the great man's bluster, and persisted in his argument when it seemed to me the part of wisdom would have ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... detection. TOMMY'S falcon eye had noted it, his relentless foot had followed up the tracks, and he had discovered, on reference to the original, that the criminally-deleted line of print embodied a reference to the Oxus. That was all. "Only the Oxus!" he said, with withering sarcasm. Then changing his tone and manner, he shook a minatory forefinger at the shrinking form of the PREMIER, and cried aloud, in voice strengthened with long warring with the winds on the Pamirs: "Sir, the stream of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... I feel greatly obliged to you," rejoined the boatbuilder, with evident sarcasm. "But to put money into this enterprise, Mr. Melville, would be to encourage, needlessly, competition with your own ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... him, and when his eyes met Louis', they bore no more consciousness of his presence than if he had been a piece of stone. Frank Digby did not tease Louis, but he let fall many insinuations, and a few remarks so bitter in their sarcasm, that Reginald more than once looked up with a glance so threatening in its fierceness, that it checked even that audacious speaker. Even little Alfred was not allowed to sit with Louis; though Hamilton made no remark, nor ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... young man's condition in poverty, when they had no love along with a silent dinner of herbs; when his mother-in-law grudged each morsel which his poor old father ate—when a vulgar, coarse-minded woman—as Mrs. Mackenzie was—pursued with brutal sarcasm one of the tenderest and noblest gentlemen in the world; when an ailing wife, always under some one's domination, received him with helpless hysterical ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sense of humor and of the fitness of things? Has she self-control, or does she, for example, use sarcasm and ridicule? ...
— A Guide to Methods and Observation in History - Studies in High School Observation • Calvin Olin Davis
... speaker's attitude of mind is not straightforward and sincere, if he speaks with a double meaning, in irony or sarcasm, the stress is a combination of the radical and final, known as compound stress (><). This is analogous to the ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... bitterness and sarcasm Lord Thurlow had a genuine sense of humour, as the following story of his Cambridge days illustrates—days when he was credited with more disorderly pranks and impudent escapades than attention to study. "Sir," observed a tutor, "I never come to the window ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... he said at last, a note of ineffable sarcasm vibrating in his voice, "I shall never cease to admire the effrontery of your class, and the coolness with which, in despite of dishonourable action, you make high-sounding talk of honour and the things to which it binds you. I have a dim ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... she crawls along the road," I said with some sarcasm. "The bills she complains of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... pamphlet lying on the tables of the astronomers. Apparently, the paper had been plentifully distributed; but it was not until I reached Berlin that I found it was Hansen's defense against my strictures,—a defense in which mathematics were not unmixed with seething sarcasm at the expense of both Delaunay and myself. The case brought to mind a warm discussion between Hansen and Encke, in the pages of a scientific journal, some fifteen years before. At the time it had seemed intensely comical to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... ever so much handsomer since his father came home," said Dan, with a killing sarcasm that was wholly lost on Felicity, who gravely responded that she supposed it was because Peter felt so much ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
