"Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... millions, of their wonderful enterprises and inventions, and of the rivalry that exists between them; and I doubt not that, mingling with them, as ye must have done, ye have acquired wisdom, beside which the wisdom of the wisest of us in Ulua will seem foolishness. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... Chateaubriand and Vatout,"—did not stop it for one minute. The Academy is thus made; its wit and that wisdom which produces so many follies, are composed of extreme lightness combined with extreme heaviness. Hence a good deal of foolishness and a good ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... intensity of expression reigning over inanimate nature, contrasts with the almost absolute blank of the human countenance, with the smiling foolishness of the simple little folk who meet one's gaze, as they patiently carry on their minute trades in the gloom of their tiny open-fronted houses. Workmen squatted on their heels, carving with their imperceptible tools the droll or odiously obscene ivory ornaments, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... idiosyncrasies; Celeste suspected he was in love, but was blindly determined to believe she was the chief attraction in his eyes. Nattie, if she thought about it at all, imagined he was entirely cured Of that former "foolishness," as she termed his one attempt to put his devotion into words. And as for Jo, being so opposed to anything of a sentimental nature himself, naturally he was unwilling to observe any indications of the kind in another, and any glaring revelations that forced themselves on his ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... better than Kars how little there was to be done. They could wait and watch. That seemed to be about all. Warning would be useless. It would be worse. The probable result of warning would be to drive the hothead to some dire act of foolishness. Even to an open challenge of the inscrutable Pap. Kars and Bill were agreed they dared risk no such calamity. There were the police in Leaping Horse. But the Mounted Police were equally powerless, until some breach was ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... to him an old, old formula for peace; "'Consider the stars,' Henry, and young foolishness will seem very small. Maurice's elopement won't upset ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... generally some very remote hypothesis of what would happen if all the Orient composed its differences and were to descend suddenly upon the Western world; or some dogmatic (and very theoretical) proposition about the unchangeability of human nature, and the foolishness of expecting the millenium—an argument which would equally well have told against the union of Scotland and England or would equally justify the political parties in a South American republic in continuing to settle their differences by militarist ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... want her mother to talk to her plainer than a gentleman can talk to a young lady. I want her to understand that I am marrying so that I can have a WIFE—cheerful, ready, and healthy. I'll not put up with foolishness ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... characteristic, but if carried to an excess it becomes foolishness. We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. The mineral wealth of the country, the coal, iron, oil, gas, and the like, does not reproduce itself, and therefore is certain to be exhausted ultimately; and wastefulness ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... boy, on and on in the gloom, and through it, possibly from the still confused condition of his head, he kept constantly hearing the rimes she had repeated to him. They seemed to have laid hold of him as of her, perhaps from their very foolishness, in an ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... them in. But it's foolishness to go to all that bother when gathers would do just as ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... load of entanglement lay the thought of Kate. What utter foolishness even to think of her as he let himself think and hope! Clattering along, he told himself nothing could ever come of it but bitterness; and he cast the thought and hope of knowing her better and better until he could make her his own, completely out ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... read," said Mr. Gubb triumphantly. "So, then what? If I was in her place and I had written a letter to you, meaning to give you a threat in a roundabout way, and it went dead, I'd write some foolish letters to you to make you think the whole thing was just foolishness. I'd write you letters about weather and tacks and cats and lime and trout, and such things, to throw you off the scent. Maybe," said Mr. Gubb, with a smile, "I'd just copy bits ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... the Hermit, 'I possessed the perfect knowledge of God. But in my foolishness I parted with it, and divided it amongst others. Yet even now is such knowledge as remains to me more precious than ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... but one of the Sanhedrim, a sharp-faced man, named Simeon, the friend of Simon, the son of Gioras, the Zealot, who sat next to him, cried, "Cease this foolishness; the daughter of Satan is beautiful; doubtless Caleb desires her for himself; but what has that to do with us?" though he added vindictively, "it should be remembered against him that he is ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... cottage. On one side of him, and behind, spread the mountain woods but before him and to the right the larger trees were down. There was a vista—for the first time since he had sat upon a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his foolishness, his hunger, his aching nerves, his smarting pride, everything! The beauty before him filled his heart and mind, leaving not a cranny anywhere for lesser things. Blue sea, blue sky, blue mountains, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Our frost-bitten fingers slipped from her ice-wrapped rail, and the three of us nigh came to joining Arthur, and Lord knows—a sin, maybe you'll say, to think it, John Snow—but I felt then as if I'd just as soon, for it was a hard thing to see a man go down to his death, maybe through my foolishness. And to have the people that love him to face in the ...
— The Trawler • James Brendan Connolly
... he somedimes vould mean I don't know Ven he gifs me dis foolishness talk, If I ask him he say, "Shoost go slow, Mine dear Fritz, ven you're oudt for a valk." Dot is not like de English I shpoke, Vot I learn in de books I haf read. Den no vunder mine heart is near proke; Und Von Krink says dere's ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... some foolishness about setting spirits of wine on fire," said Phyllis. "The natives thought that ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... said Davis, 'It's something here, inside of me. It's foolishness; I dare say it's dam foolishness. I don't argue, I just draw the line. Isn't there ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... you know, and I know, that all this—or most of it—is all foolishness. We know that 'as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.' If he thinks gloomy things, he will be a gloomy man. If he thinks glad things, he will be a happy man. So, let us consider this matter now at the beginning of the new year. Strange to say, smiling is a serious thing! It affects ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... friends, was spent in three years. 'I hate that man,' one of the Old Catholics exclaimed, 'he is such a forward piece.' The words were reported to Manning, who shrugged his shoulders. 'Poor man,' he said, 'what is he made of? Does he suppose, in his foolishness, that after working day and night for twenty years in heresy and schism, on becoming a Catholic, I should sit in an easy-chair and fold my hands all the rest of my life?' But his secret thoughts were of a different caste. 'I am conscious of ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... you a few home truths. Say, Jermyn, d'y'know why I finally consented to come on this crazy cruise, anyway? Because Nina got me on the phone while you were hammering away at me at the club and ordered me to go right along with you and see you didn't do any dam foolishness. Oh, she's got me to heel right enough. Well! I guess I'll turn in and get to sleep before those fool engines start chump-chumping under my pillow. You boys will want a pow-wow to your two selves; ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... but sensible's a different affair. Her head's filled with foolishness, all along of her reading story books, I tell her; and she's got an idea that her pretty face will bring her a rich husband, and I don't know what beside. I shall be obliged to you, miss, if you'll kindly keep a sharp eye and a tight hand over Milly. Not but what she's a good ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... they could be anything but brother and sister. The marriage of babies! Was there no single apostle of common sense in all the country—a country so gloriously free that it granted licenses to every foolishness without a qualm? ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... his clothes, he mounted on any kind of a horse, which he made to bound in the air, to jump the ditch, to leap the palisade, and to turn short in a ring both to the right and left hand. There he broke not his lance; for it is the greatest foolishness in the world to say, I have broken ten lances at tilts or in fight. A carpenter can do even as much. But it is a glorious and praiseworthy action with one lance to break and overthrow ten enemies. Therefore with a sharp, strong, and stiff lance ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... of life; but they wither up the grasses of foolishness, and naturally the grasses hate ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... position. What was the use? What business had he to dream? For months now he had kept that girl's face before him, in memory of a few hours of happiness when he had looked into her dark eyes and heard her pleasant speech. Yet from the first he had known the foolishness of it all. He was nothing to her, and could never become anything. Even if he cleared his past record and stepped out of the ranks into his old social position, the chances were she would never overlook what he had been. Her gratitude meant little, nor her passing interest in his ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... their public meetings, rendered it imperatively necessary to close them all to the world during a period of seven years, in consequence of the then unprepared state of the people, to which the whole of the manifestations, and the meetings too, would have been as unadulterated 'foolishness,' or as inexplicable mysteries." ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... efficacious than destiny. If any human action that is commenced does not succeed through destiny, the actor becomes like one who falling off from the path of righteousness, is lost in the wilderness of sin. The sages speak of defeat as foolishness when one having commenced an act swerves from it through fear. In consequence of the wickedness of my essay, this great calamity has come upon me, otherwise Drona's son would never had been forced to hold back from battle. This ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... flowers," said Patty, not deigning to laugh at his foolishness. "And then, to-morrow morning, I'm going to send ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... yet a love that could thrust from it that which it loved, was beyond her altogether. Either Marjorie loved the lad, or she did not, and if she loved him, why did she pray that he might be a priest? That was foolishness; since priesthood was a bar to marriage. She began to conclude that Marjorie did not love him; it had been but a romantic fancy; and she ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... giant, without any harm in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite, and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick. If this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness seemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind it; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work of Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... all it is. Poetry is all work and no pay. You should have seen that gink sweatin' over the fool stuff. He'd work a week for five dollars' worth of foolishness. And besides, as soon as he married me ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... ''Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygur-man. They saw the palanquin lying loneful an' forlornsome, an' the beauty av ut, after Dearsley's men had dhropped ut and gone away, an' they gave ut the best name that occurred to thim. Quite right too. For aught we know the ould lady was thravellin' incog—like me. I'm ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... art not drawn away, By foolishness, to break the Sabbath-day; Be constant at the pious house of prayer, That thou mayst learn ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... to my eyes, and I was thinking so little about myself that I let them roll down without bothering to wipe them away. "Do, do forgive me," I implored. "But you never can, of course. All through my foolishness you're out of an engagement. And you depended upon it, I know, from what ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... weak spot in Cousin," regretted Hughes. "He's a good hater. But he'd have a bigger count for that little sister of his if he'd take them wherever he finds them. It's all damn foolishness to pick and choose your spot for killing a red skunk. And this friendly Injun talk makes me sick! Never was a time but what half the Shawnees and other tribes was loafing 'round the settlements, pretending to be friends, while t'other half was ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... this foolishness of her brother's which Miss Chantry could not forgive De Chaumont's daughter. She was incessant in her condemnation, yet unmistakably fond in her English way of the creature she condemned. Annabel loved to drag my poor master in flowery chains ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Now, Midget, listen to your old and wise Father. Forget all this foolishness. Gladys is gone now, and Delight is your very good friend, your best friend in Rockwell. Just keep on being friends with her, and do all you can to be a good friend. Don't discuss Gladys with her, don't discuss her actions, or her jealousy, ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... experience has not produced this sort of clear maturity in the spirit, then it produces either despair or folly, or an exaggerated shirking of reality, which, being a falsehood, is wickeder than despair, and far more inhuman than mere foolishness. Thus those who in the third phase of which I speak have not attained the wisdom which I here recognize will often sink into a passion of avarice, accumulating wealth which they cannot conceivably enjoy; a stupidity so manifest that every age of satire has found it the most facile of commonplaces. ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... it most takes it out. He never asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me. You 've never been married Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, so you don't know much about it; but I tell you there 's a heap o' foolishness talked about husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, I don't know as it matters if all the other women folks in town don't happen to like him as well as you do; they ain't called on to do that. They see the face he turns ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and you didn't know—you damned engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought the smash. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... before the surrender of the town, the scheme of the "Destroyers" was unwittingly disclosed through the foolishness of the man who had been apparently chosen to carry it out. Judge Kock, who was a friend of Dr. Krause's, came over to Johannesburg for the purpose of making a last and determined effort to destroy the mines. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... his old glove into the fire and all thoughts of him to the winds. So I went for the glove, and kissed it—foolish thing!—and put it back in my treasure-box, and went on thinking of Arthur more than ever. Then I remonstrated with myself for my foolishness, and took my writing-desk in my lap and sat down in the conservatory to write to the baron. I began my letter 'My dear Arthur,' and then had to begin again, and started fairly with 'My dear baron.' Then I tried to frame a proper sentence to start with, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Folly — N. want of -intelligence &c. 498, want of - intellect &c. 450; shadowness[obs3], silliness, foolishness &c. adj.; imbecility, incapacity, vacancy of mind, poverty of intellect, weakness of intellect, clouded perception, poor head, apartments to let; stupidity, stolidity; hebetude[obs3], dull understanding, meanest capacity, shortsightedness; incompetence &c (unskillfulness) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... "Yes, laugh at my foolishness; I love to see you laugh, you who have laughed so little all these days. But I think the time of laughter has come for ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... it was, old man. Two years later we got a letter from Vasya from Warsaw. He wrote that he was being sent home sick. He was ill. By that time I had put all that foolishness out of my head, and I had a fine match picked out all ready for me, only I didn't know how to break it off with my sweetheart. Every day I'd make up my mind to have it out with Mashenka, but I didn't know how to approach her so as not to have a woman's screeching about my ears. The letter ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... foolishness,' says Sam, as he scraped the mud out of his hair. 'Think of our goin' like that. We ought to have known better.' "'We knew better,' I says, 'but we had to keep ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... unnecessarily high for the joy of doing it and when it struck it communicated a sharp yet not unpleasant sting to the palms of my hands. The handle broke short off at the point where the helve meets the steel. The blade was driven deep in the oak wood. I suppose I should have regretted my foolishness, but I did not. The handle was old and somewhat worn, and the accident gave me an indefinable satisfaction: the culmination of use, that final destruction which is ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... no time fur foolishness, baby. Yer 'ain't said nothin' 'bout yo' ma an' de ole black 'oman's baby bein' borned de same day, is yer? An' how de ole 'oman nussed 'em bofe des like twins? An'—an' how folks 'cused 'er o' starvin' 'er ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... national forest and national park in our country, and also on uncountable hundreds of thousands of rough, wild, timbered hills and mountains such as exist in probably twenty-five different states. There is no reason, except man's short-sighted greed and foolishness, why there are not to-day one hundred thousand elk living in the Allegheny Mountains, furnishing each year fifty thousand three-year-old males as free food ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... then!" said I. "Tell him the man's a fraud and the place foolishness, and if he'll go up there to-morrow he'll see all that's left of it. But tell him this, Uma, and mind he understands it: If he gets talking, it's bound to come to Case, and I'm a dead man! I'm playing his game, tell him, and if he says one word my blood will be at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stubborn rebellion against the will of God, manifested in the dispensations of his providence, in a word, the natural and carnal mind is incapable of faith, of obedience, and of submission. There are many things revealed in the scripture, that the natural man cannot receive or know, "for they are foolishness to him," 1 Cor. ii. 14. Some spirits there are lifted up above others, either by nature or education, in which this rebellion doth more evidently appear, reason in them contends with religion, and they will believe no more ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... single acre of land that had not been taken by force of arms, and that the people held nothing save that which had been assigned by the republic. The object, then, of the tribunes was to distribute the fortunes of the entire state. Such vapid foolishness as this failed not of the effect which the patricians aimed at. Appius Claudius counselled the adoption of the excellent means invented by his grandfather. Six tribunes were bought over by the caresses, flatteries, and money of the patricians and opposed their vetoes to their colleagues ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... the Comparative degree is this: it denotes either some excess or some relative deficiency of the quality, when one thing or party is compared with an other, in respect to what is in both: as, "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."—1 Cor., i, 25. "Few languages are, in fact, more copious than the English."—Blair's Rhet., p. 87. "Our style is less ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said when we were alone, "that hussy, Margherita, must leave our friend's house at once. I can see that you love Maria Dovizio so disinterestedly that you prefer her happiness to your own. Now it is certain that Raphael and Maria love each other; and we must not allow any foolishness to part them. Let us work in concert ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... condemns all for fools, Psal. xciii.; xxxii. 9; xlix. 20. He compares them to "beasts, horses, and mules, in which there is no understanding." The apostle Paul accuseth himself in like sort, 2 Cor. ix. 21. "I would you would suffer a little my foolishness, I speak foolishly." "The whole head is sick," saith Esay, "and the heart is heavy," cap. i. 5. And makes lighter of them than of oxen and asses, "the ox knows his owner," &c.: read Deut. xxxii. 6; Jer. iv.; Amos, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... close intimacy with her clothing. Indeed, on one of the stages, when he stopped for a moment's breathing, he kissed the little garments devoutly, and then laughed shamefacedly at himself for his foolishness, and glanced round quickly lest any should ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... I think, do you know, that if I were ever foolish enough to marry—and it would be foolishness in a spoiled creature like me—I should want a husband who could accommodate himself to me. Now, you couldn't. Clergymen never accommodate ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... sorry, nothing, only foolishness," said Esther. "We really must do something to make a holiday of the occasion. Oh, I know; we'll have tea before you go, instead of waiting till supper-time. Perhaps Rachel'll be back from the Park. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... envy. The same eyes, when dry, show the possessors to be faithless, traitorous, and sacrilegious; and if these eyes are also yellow and cold, they argue insanity. For hollow eyes are the sign of craft and malignity; and if they are wanting in darkness, they also show foolishness. But if the eyes are too hollow, and of medium size, dry and rigid,—if, besides this, they have broad, overhanging eyebrows, and livid and pallid circles round them, they indicate impudence and malignity." [Footnote: Albertus Magnus, De Anim.] If this be not enough to enable you, O my reader, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... that, when the gay young lieutenant-governor had taken his leave, my father said to my mother, "Was it thou who didst tell the boy this foolishness of these being our arms and the like, or was it ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... selfishness that throws dark shadows on life, just as it is not the sun but the body that throws shadow before it. It is the self-same selfishness that gave rise to the belief in the immortality of soul, in spite of its irrationality, foolishness, and superstition. Individual self should be a poor miserable thing if it were not essentially connected with the Universal Life. We can always enjoy pure happiness when we are united with nature, quite forgetful of our poor self. When you look, for example, into ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... these good people wrote their reports not to tell you how the country they resided in was, but how it was getting on towards being what it ought to be, and how necessary it was that their readers should subscribe more freely, and not get any foolishness into their heads about obtaining an inadequate supply of souls for their money. I also found fearful confirmation of my medical friends' statements about its unhealthiness, and various details of the distribution of cotton shirts over which I ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... low, and thus veiled the malignant hatred in his eyes. "Yes, your Majesty," he replied, "providing the apology is given as publicly as was the insult, in presence of those who were witnesses of the Count's foolishness." ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... enough foolishness," said the stranger to Malbihn. "You deserve death, but I am not the law. I know now who you are. I have heard of you before. You and your friend here bear a most unsavory reputation. We do not want you in our ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nearly fall from his thin hands through sheer weakness. He was the Portuguese bishop from down-coast of course, and when I remembered that he had just been through black-water fever (which is own brother to yellow jack) I judged that from a human point of view he was behaving with exquisite foolishness in meddling with first-crop cholera patients. But I respected him a good deal for all that, and went and got opium and acetate of lead and gave the man on the hatch a swingeing dose. It was a useless thing to do, because ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... you mean of foolishness, p'tit Jacques? Ah! I was wrong! not striped; wreenkled, you say? all up togezzer like a brown apple when he is dry up,—like zis way!" and Mother Marie drew her pretty face all together in a knot, and looked so comical that we went into ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the unholy opinion that a translation is as good as the original, or better. Nor need we suppose that he knew that pious sensation of the book-lover, the feel of a library; that he had any of the collector's amiable foolishness about rare editions; or that he nourished festive thoughts of 'that company of honest old fellows in their leathern jackets in his study,' as comrades in a sober old-world conviviality. His books were for spiritual use, like maps and charts of the mind of man, and not much for 'excellence of divertisement.' ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... the letter that I had no hope of it. It's your mistake to think me a crafty, plotting, selfish woman. I'm only a very miserable one—it went on from this to that, and I meant nothing. I didn't scheme; I was only tempted into foolishness. I felt myself getting into difficulties that would be my ruin, but I hadn't strength ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... was right and still believe was right, though I grant to the other side the same that I ask for myself. Yet these men who had actually died for their country were little noticed, and the hero of the hour was this boy. Why was he the hero? Simply because that man fell into that same foolishness. This boy was an officer, and those were only private soldiers. I learned a lesson that I will never forget. Greatness consists not in holding some office; greatness really consists in doing some great deed with little means, in the accomplishment of vast ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... hid within the chamber, I saw thee cast my kerchief to the winds, and with sweet words cherish my royal Rival's gift. Then—oh, thou knowest—in my pain I betrayed the secret that thou wouldst not see, and thou didst make a mock of me, Harmachis! Oh! the shame of it—thou in thy foolishness didst make a mock of me! I went thence, and within me were rising all the torments which can tear a woman's heart, for now I was sure that thou didst love Cleopatra! Ay, and so mad was I, even that night I was minded to betray thee: but I thought—not yet, not yet; to-morrow ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... or mine. Perhaps it only seems so to me because I don't understand 'em. It's quite possible. One thing's sure, they don't understand me. At least, the women don't; I can get along with the men—most of 'em. They're not a bad lot, if immature. You can stand a lot of foolishness from children once you realise ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... shore. Either from blindness or fright they did not join their parents in mid stream, but hurried across to the opposite bank and scrambled on to the mud, followed by the old couple remonstrating with them on their foolishness. The mother then succeeded in persuading one of them to follow her to a place of safety underneath some overhanging boughs, but the other was left clinging to the bank, crying piteously. I went round by a bridge in the hope ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... his sympathy with such a state of affairs by a pressure that nearly took her breath away. They sat for an hour and a half on a bench by the river discussing the foolishness of young men. ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... said: "I ought not to have helped you this time. Any one who is so crazy as to change places with a blind man should be left without help, so be careful, as I am getting tired of your foolishness, and will not help you again if you do anything as foolish as you did ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... kidding and foolishness aside, for I just say in here whatever I think anybody might laugh at, But of course my real sentiments are the same as everybody else, anything to prevent war If He puts this thing through and there is no more wars, His address will be WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON D C till his whiskers ...
— Rogers-isms, the Cowboy Philosopher on the Peace Conference • Will Rogers
... he spent in the Basin, sitting beside Marie in the huge campfire circle, made wonderful by the shadowy giants, the redwoods; talking foolishness in undertones while the crowd sang snatches of songs which no one knew from beginning to end, and that went very lumpy in the verses and very much out of harmony in the choruses. Sometimes they would stroll down ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... left the world he breathed upon his apostles and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit," adding, "Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained." So it pleased the Father to "save men through the foolishness of preaching." And Paul said, "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus's sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... true, but lovely to behold—covered the patches so absolutely bald twenty-four hours ago. The seed we had seen sown had sprung up as thickly as finest cut velvet. Cosa de Espana, indeed! It is not always in Spain—the land of the unexpected—that Manana veremos is foolishness. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... "before I have reigned a year every gate in Memphis shall be melted down for cooking vessels, and I will set their captains to work in the desert mines. Nay, such threats are foolishness, I'll not threaten, I'll strike when the time comes, but that is not yet. Can I speak with ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... night, buying peppermint drops and every kind of foolishness, the same as she might be a little girleen that was given a penny and her just out ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... The old man tried to straighten up. "I shell not go in der boads. I, mit childrun und grandchildrun, to go in der boads? It is der foolishness—all der foolishness—dose boads." ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... said Uncle William. "I ust to feel that way when I'd been in debt a good while and made a big ketch. Seemed 's if the whole world slid off my shoulders." He shook his head. "But it was kind o' foolishness." ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... himself off. He was disgusted at the foolishness of this girl, which revealed itself all at once in the language of the populace. He felt himself even becoming a little patriotic ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... the boy down here and sort of bring him up. Perez knows as much about bringing up a boy as a hen does about the Ten Commandments, and 'Lizabeth made him promise not to lick the youngster and a whole lot more foolishness. School don't commence here till October, so we got him a job with Lem Mullett at the liv'ry stable. He's boardin' with Lem till school opens. He ain't a reel bad boy, but he knows too much 'bout some things and not ha'f enough 'bout others. You've ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... of feeling was too much for my wrought-up nerves, for I began to cry and laugh by turns; and when I came back to calmness, I found him at my feet and holding my hand, and . . . talking foolishness. But my sole idea was to be gone, and I told him so curtly and started for the door. To my amaze, he stepped in front of me, and as I would have slipped by he caught my arm. I tried to fling him off, but ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... as to pay these seven writers a single compliment which they will care to accept. The most foolish composition of the seven is Dr. Temple's; the most mischievous is Professor Jowett's: but the germ of the last Essay is contained in the first; the foolishness of the first Essay is abundantly shared by the last: while the evidence of correspondence of sentiment between the two writers is unmistakable. The most unphilosophical Essay, (where all are unphilosophical,) is Professor Powell's: ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge-worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence, you must also confound her with virtue. According ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... themselves no small airs of recent years—they dress, so far as their means will go, as flashily as servants in cities, and stand upon their dignity. This foolishness has, perhaps, one good effect—it tends to diminish the illegitimate births. The girls are learning more self-respect—if they could only achieve that and eschew the other follies it would be a clear gain. It may be questioned ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... make the fool to talk foolishness? Dost thou then cast away the banana? Does not one talk foolishness also who is sick and yet discardeth good medicine, because he ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... cook, Billy Louise. Yuh don't want to go and get notions. Your maw ain't healthy, and your paw likes good grub. Po'try is all foolishness; there ain't any ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... to teach school a few months in the year to the children of the white settlers. Indeed, Houston was so much taken with the pursuit of scholarship that he made up his mind to learn Greek and Latin. Naturally, this seemed mere foolishness to his mother, his six strapping brothers, and his three stalwart sisters, who cared little for study. So sharp was the difference between Sam and the rest of the family that he gave up his yearning after the classics and went to the other extreme by leaving home and plunging into the heart ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... about the frail old body. "Oh no, sir, oh, no!" he said in low, comforting, half-bantering tones. "That's the old foolishness, sir, if I may so say. You're perfectly safe with me. You ought to trust me by now, ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... hundred different ways in which it could be used, and had advertised them all. It seemed there was nothing you could cook that didn't need a dash of it. He kept me between a chill and a sweat all the time. Sometimes, but not often, I just had to grin at his foolishness. I remember one picture he got out showing sixteen cows standing between something that looked like a letter-press, and telling how every pound or so of Graham's Extract contained the juice squeezed from a herd of steers. If an explorer started for the North Pole, ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... make response: "Because of our dear Miss Sterling. She say it is of uttermost foolishness to make marriage and cryings at same time. It is not the American way to so do. American lady make first marriage, no cryings, sometimes later make cryings, but not always. Also I have great and copious joys for in my house of littleness ...
— Seven Maids of Far Cathay • Bing Ding, Ed.
... he was emphatically right. His cool and steadfast insistence on our rights, and his clearsighted recognition of the proper way to obtain them, contrasted well with the mixed turbulence and foolishness of the Westerners who denounced him. They refused to give up the Mississippi; and yet they also refused to support the party to which Jay belonged, and therefore refused to establish a government strong enough to obtain ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... sprang apart in consternation; Climene with clasped hands, parted lips, and a bosom that raced distractingly under its white fichu-menteur; M. Leandre agape, the very picture of foolishness and dismay. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... sudden hand on his shoulder. "No one doubts that, my boy. You're true gold. But it's sheer foolishness to go on in the same old way that's proved a failure a hundred times. In heaven's name, now that we've hauled her out of that infernal groove, don't let idiotic sentimentality spoil everything! Don't shy at the consequences! I'll ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... don't know why we overlooked her; indeed, the error was inexcusable, especially as Hans had already experienced her foolishness and she was lying there before our eyes. I suppose that our minds were so concentrated upon the guard-killing and the tragic and impressive Inez that there was no room in them for the stolid and matter-of-fact Janee. At any ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... But he was in a captious mood; and he did not wish to oblige her. His mind was chiefly full of the fact that he had made himself look foolish by kidnapping her and had had to pay her six pounds compensation. He was still sore about the foolishness and also about the money, for ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... me—magic darkness in which I beheld floating clouds made of the dust of gold and vanishing melodies. Any person who knows of these singular things comprehends how little of them can be told; but to those people who do not know of them, it may appear all great foolishness. Such people are either too young, and they must wait, ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... for the greatest. Even Lettie Conlow, whose father kept on shoeing horses as though there were no civil strife in the nation, found such favor with me as she had never found before. I know now it was only a boy's patriotic foolishness, but who shall say it was ignoble in its influence? Marjie was my especial charge. That Fall I did not retire at night until I had run down to the bushes and given my whistle, and had seen her window light waver ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and condescending Savior, is the great and affecting theme. Derided by the world, it is, nevertheless, effectual to the salvation of them who believe. "We preach Christ crucified: to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." The doctrine of the cross connected with evangelical ordinances—the ministry of reconciliation; the holy Sabbath; the sacraments of His covenant: briefly, the whole system of instituted ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... young lady mean by being godmother?" said aunt Dora. "She looks very sweet and nice; but what is the meaning of that grey cloak? Oh, Frank, I hope you don't approve of nunneries, and that sort of thing. It is such foolishness. My dear, the Christian life is very hard, as your aunt Leonora always says. She says she can't bear to see ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... wert undone by thine own foolishness. Why didst chatter to a stranger about thy papers? Is not all England agog to find the land of 'El Dorado'? Dost think that any man breathing could resist the temptation to gain a knowledge of the way thither? I suffer from no gold hunger, but I would like the honour of discovering ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... that the first topic, which chance brings uppermost, is one which overflows with the wrath of inexhaustible disgust. What fiend of foolishness has suggested to our absurd kinsmen in the East, through the last sixty years, to generalise themselves under the name of Europeans? As if they were ashamed of their British connections, and precisely at that moment when they are leaving England, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... nought but vanity in beauty, And nought but weakness in a fond caress, And pitied men whose views of Christian duty Allowed indulgence in such foolishness. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... cause and original of it does not lie in the calamity itself. Your principal philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, though they have not yet arrived at perfect wisdom, are not they sensible that they are in the greatest evil? For they are foolish, and foolishness is the greatest of all evils, and yet they lament not. How shall we account for this? Because opinion is not fixed upon that kind of evil, it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, and our duty to be uneasy because ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... not to think about him; and now that he appears to have relieved me of his presence, I an conscious of a void—that sort of void the ear feels when a sharp and piercing noise which has long annoyed it ceases. What I am going to add may seem to you great foolishness; but are we always mistress of such mirages ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Venice that we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?"—"'Arry" in the Times. No doubt it is becoming in an artist to leave all criticism unanswered; it would be foolishness in a schoolboy to resent stuff of this sort. Whistler replied; and in his replies to ignorance and insensibility, seasoned with malice, he is said to have been ill-mannered and caddish. He was; but in these respects he was by no means ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... more beautiful than ours; 480 Nor saw a band in happiness and joy Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod. I could record with no reluctant voice The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line, 485 True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong And unreproved enchantment led us on By rocks and pools shut out from every star, All the green summer, to forlorn cascades Among the windings hid of mountain brooks. [i] 490 —Unfading recollections! at this hour The heart is almost mine with which ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally end war. The stern, strong, silent man will cease to trouble us only when we have stripped him of his last rag of pretension and touched through to the quick of his vanity with the realization of his apprehended foolishness. Literature will have failed humanity if it is so blinded by the monstrous agony in Flanders as to miss the essential triviality at the head of the present war. Not the slaughter of ten million men can make the quality of the German Kaiser ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... me!" And he was on the very verge of adding, "Join us! Come and join us!" when the little German turned his bald head slowly round and fixed upon the excited Irishman such a cool and quenching stare that instantly he felt himself convicted of foolishness, almost of impertinence. ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... side of Jesus' life appears when the Greeks seek him in the temple. They were probably proselytes from some of the Greek cities about the Mediterranean where the synagogue offered to the earnest-minded a welcome relief from the foolishness and corruption of what was left of religion in the heathen world. Having visited Jerusalem for the feast, they heard on every hand about the new teacher. They were not so bound to rabbinic traditions as the Jews themselves, ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... will be the result of our foolishness," remarked the other, gravely. "And we ought to be thankful that ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... down, and the president said: "I think it is time that the whole nation threw off this foolishness of half covering their horses' eyes, just put your hands up to your eyes, members of the band. Half cover them, and see how shut in you will feel; and how curious you will be to know what is going on beside you. Suppose a ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... invitation gladly accepted, as visits to Loringwood were just now especially prized by the neighboring darkies, for the two runaways were yet subjects of gossip and speculation, and Uncle Nelse scattered opinions in the quarters on the absolute foolishness in taking such risks for freedom, and dire prophesies of the repentance ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Sybil had been nervous and irritable, all the more because she was conscious of being watched. She was in secret ashamed of her own conduct, and inclined to be angry with Carrington, as though he were responsible for her foolishness; but she could not talk with Madeleine on the subject without discussing Mr. Ratcliffe, and Carrington had expressly forbidden her to attack Mr. Ratcliffe until it was clear that Ratcliffe had laid himself open to attack. This reticence deceived ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Dinah, as one of her feet came down on the floor with a bang, "I's got my 'pinion of sich foolishness ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... gratefully used) often suggest quite opposite conclusions to my thoughts than to theirs—the view-point is different, that is all. They were seeking for one thing; I for another: they were men; I am a woman. It would be foolishness for me to attempt any special pleadings for my own opinions. How far I shall succeed, or fail, to make clear to others a period of mother-right that is certain to me, I do not know. I offer my ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... with his wife. "Granny Hill" the boys called her. Bedridden she Was; but so kind as Joe was to her! kept the room so clean!—and the old woman, when he was there, was laughing at some of "t' lad's foolishness." The step was far down the street; but he could see him place the ladder, run up, and light the gas. A longing seized him to be spoken ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... the Louvre, "Faith Jardine, Sculptor." For if more ambitious women would devote themselves to making one neglected husband happy the public would be spared weak and indifferent pictures, silly and rank books, rainy-day skirts in the house, and heaps of other foolishness and bad taste, most of which at bottom is not the necessity to work for a ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... speak for himself, and there is no secret," said he, curtly. "It is you with your imaginings that make a secret. Ta, ta, ta! I have no patience with such foolishness." ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for this insanity. Too much talk about la revanche! The very idea of worrying for forty-four years over the two lost provinces when the nation was mistress of enormous and undeveloped lands in other countries! . . . Now they were going to pay the penalty for such exasperating and clamorous foolishness. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... me: "He gave it to an agent to use, he to share in the profits, and then paid no attention to it for three years after. He gave up his time very greatly to the building of bridges and roads, and while he was busy in such bits of foolishness, the other made the most of his time and consumed it all." Another person, of whose philanthropy and gentlemanliness I have positive proofs, told me that if he obtained the government of a province, he would assemble all the influential men and make them an offer to renounce all trade provided that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... a shrug of her youthful shoulders. "Perhaps you think I have time for such foolishness—what with housework to do and washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... thet house sence; Some say 'tis haunted,-but I ain't no use fer foolishness, So all I say's ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... seemed impressed, though too cautious to accept the fact until there was more proof. Already the foolishness of making an unsupported accusation had been brought home to them, and the scout-master felt that it was his duty to warn Jud and Tom against talking ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... goodwill among them just now. The effect has been much the same: to those who heeded it matter for tears that such heavenly balm should be within our hearing but out of our grasp; to the ravenous and the rabid a mere foolishness. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... the sodgers," returned her companion, aggressively, "they kin take care o' their own precious skins, or Uncle Sam will do it for 'em, I reckon. Anyhow the people—that's you and me, Mag—is expected to pay for their foolishness. That's what they're sent yer for. Ye oughter to be satisfied with that," he added with ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... south side onbearable, is thransportin' his troops up th' river on rafts an' is now engagin' th' inimy between Spitzozone an' Rottenfontein, two imminsely sthrong points. All this dimonsthrates th' footility an' foolishness iv attimptin' to carry a frontal position agains' large, well-fed Dutchmen with mud in th' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... the dentist. "It's mighty hard," he added sympathetically. "Women are mostly children, the better sort, and you feel bad, even when they're in trouble through their own foolishness." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... mother-of-pearl rosary with a little glass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained, said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money," but bought and went on buying; and, every time something new went into the big ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... chief minister and guardian. Only the conviction with which men like Clemens and Origen, who were friends of his wife, declared that the doctrine to which they adhered was the only right one—was, in fact, the truth itself—seemed to the skeptic "foolishness." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... grown faster than his wife, and the change in his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the woman's back was turned, Joe burst out, "There, there! see what you 've done with your damned foolishness." ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... "What foolishness," growled Carl, "to tire themselves at the beginning of the journey! But they're racing in earnest—that's certain. Halloo! ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... shimmering wheel of light, then it clattered against the marble balustrade half a dozen yards away. With his sword it seemed that his courage, too, departed, and he stood at my mercy, a curious picture of foolishness, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... will be blaming you, for you have been a good father to me, and said what you would be considering right, but it is not easy for a man to understand a girl. Oh, if I had had my mother, then she would have understood me, and I would not have crossed you. Forget poor Flora's foolishness, but you will not forget her, and maybe you will still pray for me. Take care of the geraniums for my sake, and give milk to the lamb that you called after me. I will never see you again, in this world or the next nor my mother ... (here the letter was much blotted). When ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... can influence to any appreciable degree the moral ideas and impulses of their children. These things have their springs in the bases of character; they are the flower of individuality; and they cannot be altered after birth by the foolishness of preaching." Let us read this passage, with the alteration of only a word or two, and it forms an admirable criticism of the more recent speculations of the party to which Mr. Allen belonged. There is no more silly and persistent error on the part of socialists than ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... working backwards, or the toes turning down and ketching in things. Regular frauds. But it's almost pathetic the way this leg goes on year in and year out, like an old faithful friend, never knowing an ache or a pain, no rheumatism, nor any such foolishness as that, but always good-natured and ready to go out of its way to oblige you. A. man feels like a man when he gets such a thing under him. Talk about your kings and emperors and millionaires, and all that sort of nonsense! Which of 'em's got ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... deity dwelt in one special spot, and that they must go thither to find him. They may have fancied that he or she dwelt in some particular image, and that they must visit, and pray to that particular image, if they wished their prayers to be heard. All this, however, have men done in their foolishness; but beneath that foolishness there have been always more rational ideas, sounder notions. They felt that it was God who had made them into families, and therefore whole families met together to worship in common ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the whole damn foolishness altogether," said George gloomily and ignored the hurt look on the press ...
— Mother America • Sam McClatchie
... this foolishness of mine is somehow bound up with the thought that I have engaged to fight that evil fellow, and must do it; all the bright, sane madness in me cries out that he is to die ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... something more than either that lent her bravery to speak, even knowing that the Lady Anne heard all. She turned quickly to him: "Nay, Sir Myles," she said, "I am foolish, and do wrong thee by my foolishness and silence, for, truly, I am proud to have thee wear my favor." She unclasped, as she spoke, the thin gold chain from about her neck. "I give thee this chain," said she, "and it will bring me joy to have it honored by thy true knightliness, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Queen Esther, and obliged by her duty to look only at the Queen's face. Daisy thought even that was a good deal to look at, it was so magnificently surrounded with decoration: but at the same time she was troubled about Nora and sorry for her own foolishness, so that her own face was abundantly in character for the grave concern that sat upon it. This picture met with great favour. The people in the library were in much glee after it was over; all ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... now-a-days called civilized, in luxury and covetousness. Surely according to the wisdom of this world, the Rechabites were foolish enough. But it is the wisdom of this world itself—not simplicity and loyalty like theirs—which is foolishness with God. ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... it first made its appearance, it had "neither form nor comeliness" in the eyes of many. It neither met the expectations of the selfish, proud, ambitious Jew, nor of the disputatious, philosophic Greek. To the one "it was a stumbling-block," and to the other "foolishness." And there have been men in every age, who have been unable to find in Christianity all that their preconceived notions had led them to expect in a religion from Heaven. There are men still, even among the sincerest and ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... at all this I grew sarcastic with him. "Sit down," said I. "Why all this foolishness about a college girl with a shirtwaist and ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... risen from his chair in great distress. "Your aunt was talking nonsense because she's piqued over a business matter, George," he said. "She doesn't mean what she said, and neither she nor any one else gives the slightest credit to such foolishness—no ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... talking fool's talk and giving out words that are foolishness! There is no one at all can put away from his road the bones ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... day, wasn't he? Dead sore on the game. Money all blown in, overcoat up the spout, nothing ahead, and a whole year of—of damned foolishness behind. Excuse me, but that's what it was. Well, he blew in that day and—he walked over to where you were ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... liberty, my task for the present is over. The rest let him who reads prove for himself. Obedience alone can convince. To convince without obedience I would take no bootless labour; it would be but a gain for hell. If any man call these things foolishness, his judgement is to me insignificant. If any man say he is open to conviction, I answer him he can have none but on the condition, by the means of obedience. If a man say, "The thing is not interesting to me," I ask him, "Are you following your ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... once opined That life is earnest, life is real; But some are of a different mind, And turn to hear the Cap-bells peal. Oft in this Vale of Smiles I've found Foolishness makes the ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... this matter Father Selred knew nothing, and he swore under his breath at his own foolishness; but the good father had not heard him, or his rough ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... you go that way. It's all foolishness to talk about ghosts. Probably the door was left open, and Snap might have taken the sandwiches, though I never knew him to take anything off the table. But it must ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... nothing;' these people are wont to reply, when we preach to them the law of God: 'I am good for nothing at being a Christian or learning the prayers.' I began to preach to all these people the truths of our holy faith, and the foolishness of their divatas, or idols. Our Lord was pleased that they should learn the doctrine in a very short time, although they were old men and obstinate, and ask for holy baptism with a devotion which caused my admiration. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... separate from grub," he explained. "I know it's downright foolishness, but I jest can't help it. It's all I can do to tear myself away from the table when I know I'm full to bustin' and ain't got storage for another bite. I'm going back to Circle to camp by a cache until I ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... did not: and there's the curse, you'll see! Nay, all of it's one curse, my life's mistake Which, nourished with manure that's warranted To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full In folly beyond field-flower-foolishness! The lies I used to tell my womankind, Knowing they disbelieved me all the time Though they required my lies, their decent due, This woman—not so much believed, I'll say, As just anticipated from my mouth: Since being true, devoted, constant—she Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... sake of uttering spiteful paradoxes, they chaffed these poor girls about their hands, disfigured by the sacred scars of toil, and as a consequence these soon no longer earned even enough to buy almond paste. By degrees they succeeded in inoculating them with their own foolishness and vanity, and then the grisette disappeared. It was then that the lorette sprung up. A hybrid breed of impertinent creatures of mediocre beauty, half flesh, half paint, whose boudoir is a shop in which they sell bits of their heart like slices of roast beef. The majority of these girls who ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger |
