"Foolish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "How foolish you are!—isn't she, Rector? No!—I suppose that's just what you like. I wonder what you have been talking to her about? I shall make her tell me. Where are you ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... some foolish morning dream of Upmeads, wondering where he was, or what familiar voice had cried out his name: then he raised himself on his elbow, and saw Ursula standing before him with flushed face and sparkling eyes, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... so much of her. He says that none can write so well as she, or has such a quick brain. And then she does not talk, he says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us." And Margaret glanced up a ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... is a young chub, or a mere chub; i.e. a foolish fellow, easily imposed on: an illusion to a fish of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... you foolish fellows! 35 Puffed up with your own doting ignorance, You always take the two sides of one question. Now go; and as I said, return for me When night falls, veiling in its shadows wide This glorious ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... spells of lost self-control. Tell the little folks that you have perfect confidence in them if they will only take time to stop and think before they talk or act. Explain to them that since you saw that they were rapidly approaching a foolish climax you thought it was your duty to call a halt, to stop them long enough to enable them to collect their wits and indulge ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... sight, and she was soon his mistress. The marquis, perhaps endowed with the conjugal philosophy which alone pleased the taste of the period, perhaps too much occupied with his own pleasure to see what was going on before his eyes, offered no jealous obstacle to the intimacy, and continued his foolish extravagances long after they had impaired his fortunes: his affairs became so entangled that the marquise, who cared for him no longer, and desired a fuller liberty for the indulgence of her new passion, demanded and obtained a separation. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... those who did not acknowledge God and shun evils as sins when in the world soon show a distaste for truths and draw back, and those who acknowledged truths with the lips but not with the heart are like the foolish virgins who had lamps but no oil and begged oil of others, also went off and bought some, but still were not admitted to the wedding. "Lamps" signify truths of faith and "oil" signifies the good of charity. It may be evident then that divine providence sees ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... suspicious that she meant that dogs know a good character from a bad, which was what "they" ("they" meaning the great collection of noodles who constitute the public) do actually say. The things "they" say! They even say that children too (the most foolish of God's creatures) have this intuitive knowledge; they say that to drink hot tea makes you cooler, that it is more tiring going down-hill than up, that honesty is the best policy, that love makes the world go round, that "literally" bears the same meaning as "metaphorically" ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... taught them by the author of their sect, from a literal application of the text, "Swear not at all;" but being a body of people, wholly turned to trade and commerce of all kinds, they found themselves on many occasions deprived of the benefit of the law, as well as of voting at elections, by a foolish scruple, which their obstinacy would not suffer them to get over. To prevent this inconvenience, these people had credit enough in the late reign to have an Act passed, that their solemn affirmation and declaration should be accepted, instead of an oath in the usual form. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... had dictated his previous answer sprang from the thought that the foolish females downstairs could not contradict it, and he adhered calmly to the course now ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... say Streight's command was surrendered to four hundred and fifty rebels. I do not believe it. The Third Ohio would have whipped that many of the enemy on any field and under any circumstances. The expedition was a foolish one. Colonel Harker, who knows Streight well, predicted the fate which has overtaken him. He is brave, but deficient in judgment. The statement that his command surrendered to an inferior force is, doubtless, false. Forrest had, I venture ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... the street, in the laboratory. So that this wretched man, watched more closely than ever was any malefactor, cannot even give a moment's thought to his own private affairs without one of his guards asking him what he is thinking about." This foolish "blague" was accompanied by a description of Edison's new "aerophone," a steam machine which carried the voice a distance of one and a half miles. "You speak to a jet of vapor. A friend previously advised can answer you by the same method." Nor were American ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... since anyone asked me to see Oz," he said, shaking his head in perplexity. "He is powerful and terrible, and if you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise reflections of the Great Wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the other case, the essence of the thing escapes. People rejoice in sweethearts because all humanity craves love, and they thrive in country villages because they crave human life. Now the living spirit of neither of these things can be caught in a net of words. All the foolish, fond doings of lovers may be set down on paper by whatever eavesdropper cares to take the trouble, but no one can realize from that record anything of the glory in the hearts of the unconscious ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... a fantasist like yourself comes up with it, and makes it look so nicely possible, the idea almost looks foolish. After all, Elwar, if you actually were the guy in that little sketch of yours, you'd hardly be asking me to read it, now would you?" He looked down at the papers, then ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... lived a wise grasshopper and a foolish ant. All through the pleasant summer weather the grasshopper sported and played, gambolling with his fellows in and out among the sun-beams, dining sumptuously each day on leaves and dew-drops, never troubling about the morrow, singing ever his one ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... ready to do the same to-night. You, too, may take your farewell of the entire suite through me—unless, of course, you have tired of my foolish vagaries." ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... the captain to such suggestions, "we must exercise forbearance. These poor fellows do not regard theft in the same light that we do; besides, it would be foolish to risk losing their friendship. Go down, Meetuck, and invite Awatok and his wife, and half-a-dozen of the chief men, into the cabin. Say I wish to have ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... an honest, good-natured, free-hearted old gentleman of the town. WOODALL, his son, under a false name; bred abroad, and now returned from travel. LIMBERHAM, a tame, foolish keeper, persuaded by what is last said to him, and changing next word. BRAINSICK, a husband, who, being well conceited of himself, despises his wife: vehement and eloquent, as he thinks; but indeed a talker of ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... writes: "Because in it (the Church) the good are mingled with the bad, the reprobate with the elect, it is rightly declared to be similar to the wise and the foolish virgins."(50) ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... sand, and the flies. And if you get the hop-family you are likely to go blind, and that is a bad thing. Is it not curious that the great river of a country that is so bad for the eyes should have cataracts itself in it? Now that would sound foolish to many people, but you, who are an Irishman, see the bearings of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... Jim Leonard tell them that a man would give up his watermelon patch, and how could they believe such a lie, poor, foolish boys?" ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... which could give umbrage to the people. But the respect he had for the people ought in my opinion to be had for all, who may have it in their power to do as much hurt; for the words that seemed strong and bold when exprest, are called foolish when they ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... puzzle," said the old man; "how foolish of me not to have made a line fast to the shore! I'll not trust myself to John Shark ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... 1657, the Thames bore a solemn funeral procession, which moved slowly, amid salvos of artillery, to Westminster, where a new vault had been prepared in the noble abbey. The tears of a nation made it hallowed ground. A prince, of whom the epigram declares that, if he never said a foolish thing, he never did a wise one—saw fit to disturb the hero's grave, drag out the embalmed body, and cast it into a pit in the abbey-yard. One of Charles Stuart's most witless performances! For Blake is not to be confounded—though the Merry ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... to the perpetuity of our State and National prosperity. I have been both entertained and instructed by these discussions; and I might say, honored, too, that you do not consider me too young and foolish to ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... fold A poet to a foolish breast? The Line, That is not, with the world within its hold? So, days with days, my days ...
— A Father of Women - and other poems • Alice Meynell
... tell you what a fiddle costs, and then you will see how foolish you are. Six hard gulden I paid for mine. Can you realize what that means? We will separate it into blutsgers. If one gulden contains a hundred blutsgers, then six guldens will be equal to six times one hundred,—quickly, quickly! Now, Rico, you are ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... valley was named "The Garden of the Gods." There is nothing especially garden-like in its appearance; but, doubtless through "apt alliteration's artful aid," the name has become greatly popular, and it would be foolish to quarrel with it, or make any attempt to change it. There are, however, ample suggestions that Titanic forces have been at work here, and it requires but little imagination to ascribe these innumerable quaint sculpturings, these ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... best adapted to hunting and fighting would be the more vigorous half. The new generation would thus be born from the leftovers, and would be poor quality. Such a division of labour within a group would be fatally foolish and entirely uncalled for—since there are plenty of men adapted to hunting and fighting, but entirely unspecialized to child-bearing ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... "Yes, many times, senor," he said. "I should have been a poor Christian had I not mentioned it. But when I speak of it she gives me a look and is gone, and I see no more of her all day, and when I see her she refuses even to answer me—so perverse, so foolish is she in her ignorance; for, as you can see for yourself, she has no more sense or concern about what is most important than some little painted fly that flits about all day long without ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... to tell me you are in my heart," he answered. "It was a foolish speech. Would you ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... young to have good sense, I reckon," the girl said, shrugging her shoulders. "Pa was alive, and we did not want for anything. I never dreamt I'd have such a load on me as I've got now. Then I had a foolish notion about love, anyway. I'd been reading novels, and got an idea in my silly head that when a girl met the right person she went through some sort of dazzling regeneration; and as I didn't feel anyways peculiar when Mr. Wrenn was ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... cause, or one of the causes, is right or not, the fact remains that by the mid-Victorian period England had fallen to a very large extent a prey to materialism. Many people attribute the sudden onslaught of this to the publication of The Origin of Species and the controversies of the foolish which followed thereon. Samuel Butler, that brilliant writer who has not even yet come into his own, sums up in his novel The Way of All Flesh (and it may incidentally be remarked, in himself) most of ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... man of art who brings his grey hairs and long study to heal you. A bear, quotha! Had you dissected as many bears as I, or the tithe, and drawn their teeth to keep your hand in, you would know that no bear's jaw ever made this foolish trifling wound. I tell you 'twas a dog, and since you put me to it, I even deny that it was a dog of magnitude, but neither more nor less than one of these little furious curs that are so rife, and run devious, biting each manly leg, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... your money in such a foolish way?" said Griswold, with apparent seriousness. "Save the dentist's bill. I know a dog that will insert a full set of teeth ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... reminds me we have a small portable trench machine, which closes up like a valise, easily handled and carried about. One man near had a box full of needles distributed in his back by a bomb; he considers himself disgraced; he says it will be kind of foolish in years to come to show his grandchildren twenty-five or thirty needles and tell them that they were the cause ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... communicating it. But as a rule, it is not through the great and the learned that revelations generally have come; but rather through the humble and comparatively obscure. This is God's way. He may choose what media He will as well as what time He will. We read that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty." And He did the same thing long ago in giving a written revelation to the world. Some of the writers were noble and learned, while others were illiterate ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... council then gives directions for the extirpation of any abuses which may creep in. These words, by which our faith and practice are regulated, are too clear to need comment, and sufficiently justify catholics from the foolish and calumnious charge of idolatry. The true Catholic practice is well expressed in a work attributed to Alcuin "We prostrate our bodies before the cross, and our souls before the Lord: we venerate the cross by which we have been redeemed, ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... you really must have covered your eyes and stopped your ears ever since you were born, otherwise you could not possibly be so ignorant. Do you not know that if your great and beloved says a foolish thing or does an indiscreet one it will be your duty to shoulder the responsibility for it? And you can easily calculate yourself during how many hours of the day your back is likely to be without a burden of some sort. And mind you, you are not to expect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... Sisera that was in his way. It is related that King Anang Pal was not satisfied with having conquered the whole of Northern India, and that a certain Brahman, artfully seizing upon the moment when his mind was foolish with the fumes of conquest, informed him there was but one obstacle to his acquisition of eternal power. 'What is that?' said King Anang Pal.—'It is,' said the Brahman, 'the serpent Sechnaga, who lies under the earth and stops it, and who at the same time has charge of Change and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... he remarked to himself, making a wry face. "Fit only for medicine. Not much danger of my ever loving it again. I wish Anna was not so foolish. A flattering opinion she has of ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... high out of the water, though not so high but that one way or another we were all able to scramble into her channels, from whence it was not difficult to make our way inboard. The French must have felt very foolish when they found us attacking them upon their unprotected side, yet they defended their prize with the utmost gallantry, and for nearly ten minutes the fight raged with great fury. But when once our lads had all contrived to scale the ship's high bulwarks ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... [Note 12 at end of para.], and the almost total impossibility of their being able to effect sales in the event of their wishing to leave, would perhaps more than counterbalance the advantages of having the country to themselves. Purchased in the days of wild and foolish speculation, and when a rage existed for buying land and laying out townships, no place has been more misrepresented or misunderstood than Port Lincoln. Many gross and glaring misstatements have been put forth of its character and capabilities, by those who were actuated by interested ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... spread about town became lost in a maze of uncertainty. It was said that some foolish young prince, name unknown, had suddenly come into possession of a gigantic fortune, and had married a French ballet dancer. This was contradicted, and the rumour circulated that it was a young merchant who had come into the enormous fortune and married the great ballet dancer, and that at the wedding ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... stove, has taken it into his poetical imagination to liken this bay to that of Naples," said John Effingham; "and his fellow-citizens greedily swallow the absurdity, although there is scarcely a single feature in common to give the foolish opinion value." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... downs and hithers and thithers of an eventful life shall I tell you the people who have made me the most weary? It is not the bad people, nor the foolish people; we can get along with all such because of a streak of common humanity in us all, but I cannot survive without extreme lassitude the decorous people; those who slip through life without sound or sparkle, those who behave themselves upon every occasion, and would pass through ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... slowly, as if striving to recall what had passed; "stay, yes, I remember, I took a foolish leap; why did ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... not that He has forgotten you; it is not that He is careless of your trembling little heart, never, never! If you are His child, all is done in love, and shall work good for you; and if we often cannot see how, it is because we are weak and foolish, and can see but ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... thalers for them; nothing less, do you hear?" "For heaven's sake just go in peace," answered the woman, "I will manage that." "You, indeed," said the man. "You once fell on your head when you were a little child, and that affects you even now; but let me tell you this, if you do anything foolish, I will make your back black and blue, and not with paint, I assure you, but with the stick which I have in my hand, and the colouring shall last a whole year, you may rely on that." And having said that, the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... exerted a kind of hypnotic force that partially had paralyzed her faculties and aroused her fears while still in his presence: her first feeling in escaping had been one of relief—and then she began to regret not having gone to Headquarters. Hadn't she been foolish? In the retrospect, the elements in him that had disturbed her were less disquieting, his intellectual fascination was enhanced: and in that very emancipation from cant and convention, characteristic of the Order to which he belonged, had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I'd face 'em. There's nothing to be ashamed of," declared Jennie. But she said it a little weakly. She knew that many of the girls would be just foolish enough to follow the lead of the Montgomery girl and ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... sad-faced man clearly desired to avoid me, answering my nod with a cold embarrassment, and clutching Johnny's hand whenever the child called "Good-morning!" to me cordially. I fancied him ashamed of his foolish falsehood; and I, on my side, was angry because of it. The pair were for ever strolling backwards and forwards on deck, or resting beneath the awning on the poop, and talking—always talking. I fancied the boy was delicate; he certainly had a bad cough during the first few days. ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... so thick that it could be seen hanging about him like an aura, luminous in the glare of the electric light. His slender, nervous hands worked rapidly, with a business-like air of dexterity and dispatch. But every now and then he raised his head and stared for quite a long time at the round, white, foolish face of the clock, and whenever he did this his eyes were the eyes of a young man who has no adequate ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... and, as I am told, a very pretty one—a certain young girl—a Venetian artist, of the name of Foscarelli—Paolina Foscarelli, with whom it seems the Marchesino was foolish enough to fall in love. Well, this girl sees the Marchese and Bianca driving out alone together at that time in the morning to the Pineta—that much we know—sees them cheek by jowl together in a little bagarino, doing heaven ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... power. It is my studied conviction that no nation will ever risk general war against us unless we should be so foolish as to neglect the defense forces we now so powerfully support. It is world-wide knowledge that any nation which might be tempted today to attack the United States, even though our country might sustain great losses, would itself promptly suffer a terrible ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... you to come to bed, sir;—eh, don't be so foolish, Misther Doyle. Sure you don't think the misthress would be rowlin' on the flure there wid you, as ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... of some idler. Indeed, such was not likely; the times were superstitious, nor were there any persons connected or at variance with the family who were liable to be suspected of having played off such a foolish and wicked jest at the expense of the minister, even if any motive for doing so had existed. The minister, therefore, hastened up stairs to change his coat, leaving the Bible containing the document from the dead on the table; ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... I let her go on the stage, I knew something dreadful would happen to her," she wailed. "Of course Mr. Dix is foolish and eccentric, but I never thought he could ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... which said they would go ever so much lower, and, contrary to Pryer's advice, he insisted on selling—at a loss of something like 500 pounds. He had hardly sold when up went the shares again, and he saw how foolish he had been, and how wise Pryer was, for if Pryer's advice had been followed, he would have made 500 pounds, instead of losing it. However, he told himself he must ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... be rich, to be pointed out as wealthy, is a very foolish one, unless it be coupled with a desire to do good. This is somewhat paradoxical; for the gratification of the last most certainly repels that of the first, inasmuch as he who distributes his gains cannot accumulate to ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... out. You are not a bit solemn, really, only you put on the airs of a sister of mercy. So you don't like Etta; you need not be afraid of telling me so; she is the greatest humbug in the world, only Giles is so foolish as to believe in her. I call her a humbug because she pretends to be what she is not; she is really a most prosaic sort of person, and she wants to make people believe that she is a ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not easy to express what strong desires I felt for God and His service; and what resolutions I made to seek Him and serve Him in the future. In consequence of this, I broke off all my evil practices, and forsook all my wicked and foolish companions without delay. I gave myself up to God and His service with my whole heart. Oh, what reason have I to say, "Is not this a ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... reduces all intellects and all characters, to a dead level, and gives the same power to the bad as to the good, to the wise as to the foolish, ending thus in practice in the grossest inequality; the true, wherein each man has equal power to educate and use whatever faculties or talents God has given him, be they less or more. This is the divine equality which the Church proclaims, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... "No, not foolish; I really meant it seriously, and I believed you when you answered me. Are you of the same mind now? Believe me, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... run, pro and con. There must be a mean between the two extremes—the one, that God is in a peculiar sense responsible for the future of the United States, and cannot afford to let our experiment of self-government fail, however foolish and reckless the people may be; and the other, that unless Congress speedily passes restrictive laws the destiny of our country will be imperiled beyond remedy. We find such a mean in that Americanization which includes ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... postmaster that her New York paper is more than three days late. It means enough, surely, on the face of it, that she is the only person in Moonstone who takes a New York paper or who has any reason for taking one. A foolish young girl, Tillie lived in the splendid sorrows of "Wanda" and "Strathmore"; a foolish old girl, she lives in her niece's triumphs. As she often says, she just missed going ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... momentous question when seriously put, but foolish remark, if not worse, when flung ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... the attack, and of the powerful treatment with which it had been encountered. When he made his first appearance before Miss Quirk, one afternoon, with somewhat feeble gait, and a languid air which mitigated, if it did not obliterate, the foolish and conceited expression of his features, she really regarded him with something akin to interest; and, though she might hardly have owned it even to herself, his expected good fortune invested him with a sort of subdued radiance. Ten thousand a-year!—Miss Quirk's heart fluttered! By the time ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... all these places, Dutch or English, has a schoolmaster, except the Manhattans, Beverwyck, and now also Fort Casimir on the South River. And although some parents try to give their children some instruction, the success if far from satisfactory, and we can expect nothing else than young men of foolish and undisciplined minds. We see at present no way of improving this state of affairs; first, because some of the villages are just starting, and have no means, the people having come half naked and poor from Holland, to pay a preacher and schoolmaster; secondly, because there are ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... a noise of swift feet stirring up the rain-soaked leaves. He turned abruptly. Monet was running in the other direction—toward the precipice. A dreadful chill swept him. He tried to call, to run, but a great weakness transfixed him. The startled air made a foolish whistling sound. Monet's figure flew on in silence, gave a quick leaping movement, ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... said Carter, quickly, "except in the minds of foolish people. It is in my power to give you a life of luxury. My social position is beyond dispute, and ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... old and still playing with dolls. I saw her yesterday, dressed up in all sorts of foolish toggery, talking to her hands, and laughing. Aunt Tish humors her, and her father humored her, but I'm not going to. I feel sorry for her all right, but I am not going to ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... take that from you, my dear man: it was yourself who originally distilled the poison that courses through her veins." He jumped up at this as if he couldn't bear it, presenting as he walked across the room, however, a large foolish fugitive back on which her eyes rested as on a proof of her penetration. "If you spoil everything by trying to deceive me, how ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... as the floor. Wood only is burnt, and large heaps of glowing ashes accumulate, for the fire never really goes out, by night or day. As long as it is blazing, the pet kangaroo will keep his distance, but when it has sunk down to living coals, his foolish curiosity is sure to impel him, sooner or later, to jump right into the thick of it; and then—and here his want of brains is painfully shown—instead of jumping out again at once, he commences fighting and ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... teaching for the proper regulation of the conduct of all classes. (c) The foundation of the instruction rests upon Christ. (d) Proper attitude of the Christian community toward the Pagan world; magistrates and those who have not yet believed in Christ. Kindness and gentleness and the avoidance of foolish questions best reveal the spirit of Christ by those who profess His name. (e) Parting requests and ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... stamp, who live perforce in silence because their capacity is limited and their outlook circumscribed, often behave at great crises with a ready-made solemnity. If they say little, it naturally follows that they say little that is foolish; their extreme lack of confidence leads them to think a good deal over the remarks that they are obliged to make; and, like Balaam's ass, they speak marvelously to the point if a miracle loosens their tongues. So M. de Bargeton bore himself like a man of uncommon ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... pajamas and stepping out of them reached for his undershirt. His mother, looking at him, fell mentally on her knees before the beautiful, living body. "Oh, my son, the straight, strong darling! My precious little son!" She shook with that foolish aching anguish of mothers, intolerable. . . . "Why must he stop being so pure, so safe? How can I live when I am no longer ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... lord the king, Whose word no man relies on; He never says a foolish thing, Nor ever does a wise one. Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... you mean to hide, or do you intend to come out perfect? I daresay you can discover some little habits of your own, Eusebius, free from vanity as you are, that tend to these little concealments! Do you remember how a foolish man lost a considerable sum of money once, by forgetting this human propensity? He had lost some money to little K—— of Bath, the deformed gambler—and being netted at his loss, thought to pique the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... To draw foolish portraits of each other, is a mode of attack and reprisal, which the greater part of mankind are fond of indulging. The serious philosopher should be above it, more especially in cases from which ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... if ever we may be safe; but I hope so. I have been all day thinking I had gone foolish last night, when I told Mrs. Hartsel that I was on my way to San Pasquale. But if men should come there asking for us, she would understand, I think, and keep a still tongue. She would keep harm from ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... speed that would eventually bring her up to the craft of the enemy. Carse's Earth-watch told him that an hour and a half had passed. A vague anxiety oppressed him, but he shook it off with the thought that soon the time for accounting would arrive. Only forty minutes more; probably less. His fears—foolish. He ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... India has a healthy appetite for unsparing workers! She is a grasping harridan, who demands all and offers nothing. She devours the lives of men who are foolish enough to lose their hearts to her, and wrecks their bodies by way ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... though I am no upholder of rioters, methinks that now they have had a bitter lesson. The courts might have been content with punishing only those who took a part in the murders and burnings in London. The rest were but poor foolish knaves, who knew no better, and who were led astray by the preachings of some of these Jack Priests and other ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... to give you the preference?-That was not at all stated. They simply gave us the preference, because they had a notion-a very foolish notion-that we might have acted in the same way as other parties would probably have acted if they had not done so: that was, by giving them a warning and turning ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... that he was happy cry, Johnson would tell him plumply 'twas a lie; A lady told him she was really so, On which he sternly answered, 'Madam, no! Sickly you are, and ugly, foolish, poor, And therefore can't be ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... holds my sister in prison; but he will bestir himself in nothing, for he is a craven knight, fond of his ease, and has no care but to eat and drink, and spends his goods upon idle and sensual enjoyment. And he boasts that when he becomes count he will sell his inheritance in order to satisfy his foolish and childish wishes; for this cause I am disgusted, and will live with him no longer; therefore I have brought my little daughter to deliver her into your charge, and to make you her guardian and defender, to keep and educate her according to her station. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... "What a foolish man!" said Euphemia, when I told her the above incident, "to talk that way when you stood there with a gun in your hand. You might have raked his wagon, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... alike, but some long lived, some short lived, some healthy and some sickly, some handsome and some ugly, some powerful and some weak, some rich and some poor, some of high degree and some of low degree, some wise and some foolish [Footnote ref 1]." We have seen in the third chapter that the same soil of views was enunciated by ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... worse. Of late she had been quite hysterical, and for no reason at all! Take that little practical joke of young Joe Chandler. Ellen knew quite well he often had to go about in some kind of disguise, and yet how she had gone on, quite foolish-like—not at all as one would have expected ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... prosperity of the wicked is often a sore perplexity to the servants of GOD; they need to be reminded of the exhortation, "Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass." Many besides the Psalmist have been envious at the foolish when seeing the prosperity of the wicked, and have been tempted to ask, "Is there knowledge in the MOST HIGH?" While Satan remains the GOD of this world, and has it is his power to prosper his votaries, this source of perplexity will always continue to those who do not enter into the sanctuary ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... keep down her vanity; her quick tongue, moodiness, poverty, impossible longings, made every day a battle until she hardly wished to live, only something must be done, and waiting is so hard. She imagined her mind a room in confusion which must be put in order; the useless thought swept out; foolish fancies dusted away; newly furnished with good resolutions. But she was not a good housekeeper; cobwebs got in, and it was hard to rule. She was smitten with a mania for the stage, and spent most of her leisure in writing ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... rest of us, Lola Montez had her faults. Full measure of them. But she also had her virtues. She was gallant and generous and charitable. At the worst, her heart ruled her head; and if she did many a foolish thing, she never did a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... to make a hero out of me," said Walter, hotly, "I won't have it. I only did what anyone would have done, and I made a whole lot of foolish blunders besides." ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the whole story as she heard it from her maid, who picked it out of Mary's servant. "She is a foolish creature, and this friend that she pays as much attention to as if she was a lady of quality, is a beggar." "Well, ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... been monstrously uncivil to the Captain. It was a very foolish attitude for a lady in her circumstances to adopt towards a man in Blood's; and his lordship could not imagine Miss Bishop as normally foolish. Yet, in spite of her rudeness, in spite of the fact that she was the niece of a man whom Blood must regard as his enemy, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Pokrovsky, I found the wonderful convent, of which he told me such pious stories, consisted of a plain house cheaply furnished in which lived his peasant wife and children, together with twelve of his chosen sister-disciples, foolish women who had made over their money to him and devoted their lives to piety as set forth in ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... of personality. I care, but I do not know. But I do know that by these simple, glorious, uncomplaining deaths, some higher, purer, more splendid place is reached, some release is found from the heavy weight of foolish, sticky, burdensome, contemptible things. These heroes do "rise," and we "rise" with them. Could Christ himself desire a ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... thoughts—half-impatient, half-tender—of the wonderful ways of women which are so amazing to men in general, as the ways of men are amazing to women, and will be so, no doubt, as long as the world goes on. The strange mixture of the wise and the foolish, the altogether heroic, and the involuntarily fictitious, struck his keen perception with a humourous understanding, and amusement, and sympathy. That Mrs. Dennistoun should pose a little as a sufferer while she was unmitigatedly happy in the possession of Elinor and the child, and ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... tell you my dream," said poor foolish Luise; "and you will see why I looked happy in sleeping, and sorry in waking. I thought I was sitting here in the garden—crying over what I have been telling you—and suddenly an angel stood before me, and bade me weep not. Strange as was his form, and sunny in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... therefore, specially incumbent upon the Christian ministry, to employ a searching and psychological style of preaching, and to apply the tests of ethics and virtue so powerfully to men who are trusting to ethics and virtue, as to bring them upon their knees. Since these men are desiring, like the "foolish Galatiana," to be saved by the law, then let the law be laid down to them, in all its breadth and reach, that they may understand the real nature and consequences of the position they have taken. "Tell me," says a preacher of this stamp,—"tell ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... the shadow of the uneasy days ahead. How simple, how brief those very uneasinesses turned out to be! Things were never as bad as one feared, ever easier than one had hoped. It was a false prudence, a foolish calculation, to think that by picturing the terrors of a crisis one made it easier when it came; just as one so sadly discounted joys by anticipation, and found them hollow, disappointing husks when they ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mention; nor should I regard that man as my friend who said a word more on the subject. I care little for attacks, but I will not submit to defences; and I do hope and trust that you have never entertained a serious thought of engaging in so foolish a controversy. Dallas's letter was, to his credit, merely as to facts which he had a right to state; I neither have nor shall take the least public notice, nor permit any one else to do so. If I discover the writer, then I may act in a different ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... really like to know what is the matter with you, you foolish child! Why are you so angry with me? It is very unkind!" said Miss Merlin, feeling, she knew not why, a ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... "A foolish waste of time," observed the parlor boarder; "bread and butter is for every day; cake and custards and flummery for high holidays," she added ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... archer that the mightiest could not withstand his arts. The war-god Mars, bringing his spear one day to Vulcan's forge, smiled contemptuously at the light shafts of Cupid. "Try it," said little Love, handing him one. Whereupon the foolish fellow cried out in an agony of pain, and begged Cupid to take the arrow back. Apollo, the archer of the sun, was equally imprudent, and was richly punished for his sneers. An arrow from the fatal quiver made him mad with unrequited love for the nymph Daphne. A being who could give so much pain ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... for nothing, except peace and freedom from your foolish tears and sighs, and your disturbing lamentations. Go, woman, and say to yourself that Socrates wants to sleep for he is tired and out of humour; say to yourself that he will wake again, refreshed, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... nobody knows why this is, or why that is. As to France, my tears (which I really couldn't help at the time of the expulsion of poor Louis Philippe and his family, not being very strong just then) are justified, it appears, though my husband thought them foolish (and so did I), and though we both began by an adhesion to the Republic in the cordial manner. But, just see, the Republic was a 'man in an iron mask' or helmet, and turns out a military dictatorship, a throttling of the press, a starving of the finances, and an election of Louis Napoleon to be ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... from the wound his blood Immortal, and impatient thus complain'd. Jove, Father! Seest thou these outrageous acts Unmoved with anger? Such are day by day 1035 The dreadful mischiefs by the Gods contrived Against each other, for the sake of man. Thou art thyself the cause. Thou hast produced A foolish daughter petulant, addict To evil only and injurious deeds; 1040 There is not in Olympus, save herself, Who feels not thy control; but she her will Gratifies ever, and reproof from thee Finds none, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... protection, that's a fact," confessed Mrs. King. "Fortunately, though, I am not a timid person. It is not that I am afraid to stay here alone. My chief objection is that it seems foolish to run a great house ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... law? Pouf! W'at I mean is this: Our prisoner is not what you call seeck, nor is he ver' well. He is resis' the officer by force an' he is injure'—oh, but only a leetle—it is not'ing. One is truly foolish for resis' the policemans, yes?" He shook his dark head sadly. "I am desolate to 'ear of soch t'ing; it is so useless to stroggle wit' the officer in disbursement of duty; but you Americans are so brave! I am force' to admire this prisoner; he is ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... in the choice of names, and this solemn folly has received the name of a science, called Onomantia; of which the superstitious ancients discovered a hundred foolish mysteries. They cast up the numeral letters of names, and Achilles was therefore fated to vanquish Hector, from the numeral letters in his name amounting to a higher number than his rival's. They made many whimsical divisions and subdivisions of names, to prove them lucky or unlucky. But ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... philosophy. But these sofas, even when within reach, are not adapted to everybody. To the young, they are detestable. Reposefully they admonish that nothing is important. They whisper patience to the impatient. To hope, they say, "Be still"; to desire, "Be quiet"; to wisdom, "Be foolish." ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Florimel in a rage. She thought herself superior to Lenorme, because he, in the dread of losing her, would have her marry him at once, while she was more than content with the bliss of seeing him now and then. Often and often her foolish talk stung him with bitter pain—worst of all when it compelled him to doubt whether there was that in her to be loved as he was capable of loving. Yet always the conviction that there was a deep root of nobleness in her nature again got uppermost; and, had ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Mr. FORBES ROBERTSON is as good as the part permits, and it is the Author's fault that he is not better. Mr. GILBERT HARE gives a neat bit of character as the Doctor, and Mr. DONALD ROBERTSON may by now have made something of the rather foolish Clergyman (whether Rector, Vicar, or Curate I could not make out), whose stupid laugh began by making a distinct hit, and, on frequent repetition, became a decided bore. It is played in one Scene and three Acts, and no doubt in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... flew color-signals of embarrassment. "My father was harsh to him. He's very sensitive. I feel—sort of responsible. He might do something foolish." ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... your first score at rapid fire, and have had time to think calmly over your actions, you will probably realize that your nerves were pitched up in G and that you did a number of foolish things. You should realize that you are not an exceptional man. Ninety-nine out of every hundred normal, virile men are more or less nervous when they first step up for rapid fire. Practice and will power are ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... his tender mercy would not allow Satan to gain an advantage over me. By the grace of God my heart says,—Lord, if I could be sure that it is thy will that I should go forward in this matter, I would do so cheerfully; and, on the other hand, if I could be sure that these are vain, foolish, proud thoughts, that they are not from thee, I would, by thy grace, hate them, and entirely put ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... foolish," she ventured; "but I am really worried about Uncle Dick now. He has never answered the telegram and the two letters I've written. His Philadelphia lawyer writes that he is waiting to hear from him. He seems to have dropped out of the world. Do you think he ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... It is foolish to say that the advocates of the "Woman Movement" demand "special legislation" for woman, or desire to array her in hostility to man. It is the enemies of this movement who have made special legislation necessary, since they declare woman not to be the equal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "My foolish tongue, forsooth," growled Little John to Arthur a Bland. "I would it could keep our master from getting us into another coil ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... was lined with bookshelves, and conspicuous therein were a long row of foolish pretentious volumes, the "works" of Lagune—the witless, meandering imitation of philosophy that occupied his life. Along the cornices were busts of Plato, Socrates, and Newton. Behind Ethel was the great man's ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... down before his sword and did homage to it, and sang a great song of joy that all power on earth was in the sword. But, on hearing this, Bashtchelik laughed, and laughed again, saying, 'Foolish one! my real strength lies no more in my sword than in ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... again disturbed their father King Schelim, with foolish messages, he smoked his pipe in peace to ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... the storm had expended itself; but they left Mr Slope behind them nothing daunted, and he went about his work zealously, flattering such as would listen to his flattery, whispering religious twaddle into the ears of foolish women, ingratiating himself with the very few clergy who would receive him, visiting the houses of the poor, inquiring into all people, prying into everything, and searching with the minutest eye into all palatial ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Thou lean sow, famine-stricken and most impure.... Thou wrinkled beast, of all beasts the most beastly.... Thou bestial and foolish drunkard.... Thou sooty spirit from Tartarus.... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor, into the infernal kitchen.... Loathsome cobbler ... filthy sow ... envious crocodile.... Malodorous drudge ... swollen toad ... lousy ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... warn away any foolish town-clerks who might be heading straight to Kingdom Come! You know Bill likes to give every chump a loop-hole to save himself, if possible," retorted ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... share of responsibility in this incident he did not appear in the least disconcerted. This unexpected intoxication broke the monotony of the journey. Many foolish things had been said under its influence, but they had been forgotten as soon ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... internal regulations, would relieve the evil, and be a pleasant task to your Government. I answered that such remedies must be gradual, while the situation of Ireland was pressing at this moment; and that perhaps nothing had contributed more to the discontents now prevalent, than the foolish expectations of wealth to be poured like a torrent into the country by a free trade. To this he agreed, but said that laws might certainly be devised by which such remedies might be brought forward and hastened. Then he went into ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Man was a foolish dreamer, and his favourite dream in these days was of some time sitting beside the Little Red Chimney hearth, and discussing the Fairy Godmother Society with Miss Bentley. These bright dreams, however, were interspersed by moments ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... among his crew, a reputation for insobriety; and, once they get ashore, you may trust them to talk about it freely, very often adding embellishments of their own. The reputation of a ship-master is in the hands of his crew; and if he is foolish enough to afford them the opportunity, they may be depended upon to ruin it for him. Besides, I want you to remember your responsibilities as master of this brig. I will undertake to look after her and see that nothing goes wrong during the time that I have charge of the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... used, but it was dangerous and expensive. I would never allow Father to handle the stuff. Better let it all go forever. Probably Pa was right about our being foolish to come here. We could go home again as many people were doing. There lay the steamers making preparations to sail; but how our friends at home would ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... in darkness now, and seating themselves on the floor, with palpitating hearts they waited the issue. For more than an hour they waited the expected alarm. They could occasionally hear a movement on the part of the sentinel in the entry; but he probably thought it was foolish to be very vigilant over a man so sick as Somers. But the demonstration came at last; and the prisoners, sweltering in the confined air of the closet, listened with breathless interest to the shouts of the soldiers outside, and to the rapid steps of ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... Something caught at my heart. Did Paragot know? I debated anxiously in my mind whether I should impart the disastrous information. If he knew that she was a married woman he would put foolish thoughts out of his head, for it was only in Merovingian and such like romantic epochs that men loved other men's wives. I touched him timidly ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke |
