"Nonsense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was liked by all sorts and conditions of important people, had been about, had stayed in houses with Royalties, and had always remained just herself, perfectly natural, quite unpretending, and wholly free from every grain of nonsense. "There's no nonsense about Susan Fleet!" many said approvingly, especially those who themselves were full of it. She possessed one shining advantage, a constitutional inability to be a snob, and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... turn of the scales would depend mainly upon the mood of his companion. If she had been trifling and inclined to flirt, full of frivolous nonsense, bent upon having a good time in the frequent acceptation of the phrase, little recking the consequences of words or acts, as is often the case with girls in the main good- hearted and well-meaning, Gregory ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... for the next dance, but said that she should be happy if I would bring you up for the following one,—so come along. She's only been here for a short time on her way home from India, so I gathered from what she said; but I daresay she'll tell you if you ask her, for there's evidently no nonsense ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... shoulders impatiently: "Nonsense! When did you grow so chicken-hearted, South? It is I who have to run ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... Picture (WARD, LOCK) is that it would be better worth reading if it contained less of the tale—which, to speak quite candidly, is parlous nonsense—and more of the trimmings. The trimmings are mostly concerned with art bargain-hunting, and are excellent fun. Most of us have the treasure-trove instinct sufficiently developed to like reading about a young man who picks up Gainsboroughs for a tenner, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... woman of her age is more difficult to please than a girl, and is not to be led off her feet by a few impertinently recalled reminiscences, nor to be won by the tardy wag of a finger. She would teach Bill Nairne a lesson undreamt of in his philosophy—that all the nonsense about old maids, their humiliations, their forlorn condition, and their desperate welcoming of late ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... said: "Now, look here, my lady, the best thing you can do is to drop that nonsense at once" (she had dropped the knife in the ferns behind her), "for we're the wrong sort of people to try it on with. Now you get out of this and tell your aunt—she's sneaking there in the flax—what I tell you, and that she'd better clear out of this quick, or I'll have ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... man, and at the sound of his voice Tom and Ned smiled. "Nonsense! Of course I can go in! Why, bless my watch fob, I must go in! I've got the greatest proposition to lay before Tom Swift that he ever heard of! There's at least a million in it! ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... nonsense has been written about people (and even horses!) taking "their own line," but such scribes ought to go to Leicestershire and show how that can be done! Ladies who try to follow the teaching of such ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... retorted Mr. Badger sharply. "I'm not going to uphold him in attacking Andrew, but I'm rather surprised at his mustering spunk enough to do it. As for his doing us any harm, that's all nonsense." ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... Bengal reading of the first I me of this verse is vicious. The Bombay reading kinchidanapadi (for Kasyanchidpadi) is the correct one. The commentator explains that this has reference to alms, loans, and taxes. Both the Bengal translators have made nonsense of this and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... that they had "come from Weymouth, pleasuring!" Barrett observed that to come from Weymouth (which was several miles to the westward) by the east was a "rum" way. Davis then denied that they had come from the eastward at all, but this was soon stopped by Barrett remarking that if they had any nonsense they would get the worst of it. After this the four men went up the cliff, having loudly abused him before proceeding. On examining the spot where the boat had touched, the Coastguard found twenty-nine ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... making a fuss about old houses, and old furniture, grey walls half tumbling down and mouldy rooms. He liked the new look of The Towers, and he said to me, 'Mind, Aggie, I'm not going to let you grow any nonsense like ivy or creepers up this fine new house. They're all very well for holding together tumbledown old places, but The Towers doesn't need them. And I'm sure he would be pleased to-day if he saw it. The times people have advised me to grow ivy—even Lady ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... you would not stand there talking nonsense. The tide will be over the reef in half an ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... a brief century and a quarter the fallacy of this aspiration had become ridiculously apparent. "Born free and equal!" Nothing on this globe was ever so born. The strong who achieved, the weak who succumbed—both knew the nonsense of it. Free and equal,—so far as men could maintain freedom and equality by their own ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... manners and right feeling forbid her to refuse. She is an exceedingly intelligent girl, and I half fear I have helped you to a wrong impression of her. You will really appreciate her wit; you will indeed; believe me, you will. We pardon nonsense in a girl. Married, she will put on the matron with becoming decency, and I am responsible for her then; I stand surety for her then; when I have her with me I warrant her mine and all mine, head and heels, at a whistle, like the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lady Dulcinea being disenchanted, are you taking this line; now, just as we are on the point of becoming shepherds, to pass our lives singing, like princes, are you thinking of turning hermit? Hush, for heaven's sake, be rational and let's have no more nonsense." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... ran on the geologist excitedly, "we'll see how a lot of our present day theories will be worked out! I'm curious to see what comes of them. Personally, I think most of them are plain nonsense!" ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... sorry that I have nothing better ready.' Item (6): My own adamantine conviction that I stood near by some mystery, which was about to be a big mystery, and which would pay me to pursue. 'A fine bundle of nonsense,' I hear you say; 'as silly a flight of a vaporous brain as ever man conceived'—but stay your words awhile; remember that one who is bred up at the keyhole lets himself, if he be wise, be moved by his impulses, and first opinions. He does not quit them ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... share?—Herman has promised that. DAME. Herman will promise anything; and you know that my poor girl is doatingly fond of young Gustaffe. VEDDER. Well, I can't help that; but I am not going to allow her to make a beggar of herself and us too, for any nonsense about the man of her heart. DAME. Hers will break if she is compelled to— VEDDER. Nonsense—a woman's heart is about the toughest object in creation. DAME. You have given me plenty of proof that you think so. VEDDER. What do you intend to imply by that? DAME. Nothing! ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... reverie. The most feasible solution she could come to, was the one adopted by Judith—that Hamish passed his nights at the books. If so, how sadly he must idle away his time in the day! Did he give his hours up to nonsense and pleasure? And how could he contrive to hide his shortcomings from Mr. Channing? Constance was not sure whether the books went regularly under the actual inspection of Mr. Channing, or whether Hamish went over them aloud. If only the latter, could the faults be concealed? She knew nothing ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... FIRST POLICEMAN Nonsense, nonsense. What greater proof could we have of your guilt? This man here who you gave the letter of introduction is a stranger to the town and the piece of cloth that Mr. Cassily found hangin' on a nail in his back ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... "A lady called yesterday. Wish I might have talked with her. Sang about mother I wish, oh, how I wish—what nonsense I'm writing...." ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... heavy hand at fools, and a great felicity in writing nonsense for them. Fools they will be, in spite of him. His king, his two emperesses, his villain, and his sub-villain, nay, his hero, have all a certain natural cast of the father—their folly was born and bred in them, and something of the Elkanah ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... stiff and somewhat exaggerated military bearing of the sergeant major was at first a source of quiet amusement, later of perplexity, and finally of annoyance. For McFetteridge and his minutiae of military discipline McCuaig held only contempt. To him, the whole business was a piece of silly nonsense unworthy of ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... just put my name down, too," I replied, and the following Monday evening Remey and I started to go to school together, and this time there was no nonsense about it. That winter I studied faithfully, and, though it was hard work, by the time spring came and we returned to Chicago I had acquired at least a fair knowledge of the rudiments of business and was able to keep ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... Both being members of the International, they had unfortunately enough influence to lead our friends astray. The Hotel de Ville was taken, for a moment only, and very ridiculous decrees on the abolition of the State and other nonsense were issued. You understand that the fact alone of a Russian—whom the newspapers of the bourgeoisie represented as an agent of Bismarck—pretending to thrust himself at the head of a Committee of Safety of France was quite sufficient ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... "Enough of this nonsense! I, for one, refuse to act like a puppet for your amusement! If you are so vitally interested in contract bridge, I should advise you to take lessons from an expert, not from three terrified women who are rather poor players at best. I also advise ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... 'They say that you poisoned your uncle and that on one occasion, when you were introduced into a certain house, you sat the whole evening with your back to the hostess and that she was so upset that she cried at the insult! What awful nonsense! What fools could possibly believe such things!' Well, and what do you think? A year after I quarrelled with this same friend, and in his farewell letter to me he wrote, 'You who killed your own uncle! You who ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... "Nonsense," said Sparkle, "there is neither worse nor best; these Hells are all alike. Sharks, Greeks, Gamblers, Knowing Ones, Black-legs, and Levanters, are to be met with at them all, and they meet to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... a little red paint and a bit of white paper. I painted the ball of the client's thumb, took a print of it on the paper, studied it that night, and revealed his fortune to him next day. What was my idea in this nonsense? It was this: When I was a youth, I knew an old Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he told me that there was one thing about a person which never changed, from the cradle to the grave—the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he intended to read it, but in payment for his hour of disillusionment. Then he slung his pack over his shoulders and tramped out into the country. He laughed aloud at the thought of Helen and her idolaters. A poetic hoax. Overripe words. Seductive sounds. Nonsense! ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... characteristic additions equally creditable to human weakness or ingenuity. It is truly lamentable to reflect that while the rational and on the whole truthful descriptions of Aristotle and Theophrastus were extant and accessible, Pliny's nonsense should in preference have gained the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... nonsense talk, mammie," Dulce would answer; and the sisterly chit-chat would recommence, and her mother's head nid-nodded on the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... to you, if my eyes I'm a wiping? A tear is a pleasure, d'ye see, in its way; 'Tis nonsense for trifles, I own, to be piping, But they that ha'n't pity, why I pities they. * * * * * * * * The heart and the eyes, you see feel the same motion, And if both shed their drops, 'tis all the same end; And thus 'tis that every tight lad of the ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as you can be: and no man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the product of the earth, nor meddle with the ecclesiastical establishment in any shape; but what have I to do with the speculative nonsense ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... else out of her particular set. Now I can tell her that there's more beauty among those who don't give themselves half the airs, and who she looks down upon, than there is to be found among her 'fashionables.' But Emma is perfectly ridiculous with her 'exclusive' nonsense," he continued, with much feeling, evidently showing how deeply he resented his sister's reflections upon the style and stamp of his present ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... nonsense to do with the election?" he cried. "He's out of order, an' I appeal to ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... in some respects weak," I admitted. "But otherwise he is an ordinary English gentleman, with the traditions of an old name and a public school to back him up. I tell you, Gatton, it's nonsense. His army career alone shows him to be a ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... is of the opinion that one may very well understand Haeckel without being bound to consider everything else as nonsense which does not flow directly from Haeckel's own presentments and premises. The author is further of the opinion that Haeckel cannot be understood by attacking him with "fire and sword," but by trying to grasp what he ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... be only a little, too," replied Jeffries grimly. "I don't intend to stand any more nonsense. We'll think over the matter and decide on some kind of a move. Moxley has got to come out of that ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... Nonsense verse in its present development is a fairly modern growth. It began with the limerick which first reached the public under the kindly ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... "Nonsense!" said Euphemia, "a girl in Pomona's position couldn't help being glad to have a lady take an interest in her baby, and help bring it up. And as for Jonas, he would be a cruel man if he wasn't pleased and ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... has been a large factor in deepening the love that has made our married life an ideal one. As I look back at the first year of marriage, I wonder that we got through it so well. My knowledge of sexual hygiene was a strange mixture of fact and nonsense. If the frequency of acts of intercourse advocated by some of the authorities I have lately read is correct, then we must have passed the bounds of moderation. But it is certain that our general health has been very good: better in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the news if it is published in our papers. Now, we again ask, what's the use? The enemy get what information they want. They are with us and pass among us almost daily. They find out from us what they want to know, by passing through our country unimpeded. It is nonsense—it is folly, to deprive our own people of knowledge they are entitled to and ought to know, for fear the enemy will find it out. We ought to have a regular system of passports over all our roads, and refuse to let any man pass who could not ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... hands, and shy, quiet manners! 'She will either end as the matron of an orphan asylum or as head-nurse in a hospital.' So Bell Winship often used to say; but then she was chiefly celebrated for talking nonsense, and nobody ever paid much attention to her. But if you should crave a breath of fresh air, or want to believe that the spring has come, just call Bell Winship in, as she walks with her breezy step down the street. Her very hair seems instinct with life, with ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Nonsense!" echoed Pillichody. "I swear to you I am in earnest. By Cupid! I am ravished with your charms." And he would have seized her hand, but Patience hastily withdrew it; and, provoked at his impertinence, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... is nothing so impertinent, so insignificant, so senseless, and foolish as our vulgar way of discourse when mixed with oaths and curses, and I would only recommend a little consideration to our gentlemen, who have sense and wit enough, and would be ashamed to speak nonsense in other things, but value themselves upon their parts, I would but ask them to put into writing the commonplaces of their discourse, and read them over again, and examine the English, the cadence, the grammar of them; then let then turn them into Latin, or translate them into any ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... talking nonsense. There couldn't be a choice, because I've made my choice. Will you marry me ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... "That's nonsense. I always in my heart, recognized a moral claim you have. Besides, the case isn't finished yet. Perhaps your father may win his contest. I'm all for settling out ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... motives, what are called the spontaneous acts of the mind must be the necessary result of motives which direct and command its elections. "To say that in our choice we reject the stronger motive, and that we choose a thing merely because we choose it, is sheer nonsense and absurdity. And whoever, with a sound understanding, will fix his mind upon the state of the question, ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... a creature about whom more poetical nonsense has been written. He has been extolled to the skies as patient, long-suffering, the friend of man, and what not. In reality he is a grumbling, discontented, morose brute, working only under compulsion and continual protest, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... "Nonsense," said Nan, carelessly, "you can't expect every young man to be as interesting as Mr. Hepworth, or as companionable as ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... story has other features—delightful nonsense not surpassed by anything in 'Wonderland,' childish prattle with all the charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have been a great success. As things are, there ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Shakespeare's comedy is of a pastoral and poetical cast. Folly is indigenous to the soil, and shoots out with native, happy, unchecked luxuriance. Absurdity has every encouragement afforded it; and nonsense has room to flourish in. Nothing is stunted by the churlish, icy hand of indifference or severity. The poet runs riot in a conceit, and idolizes a quibble. His whole object is to turn the meanest or rudest objects to a pleasurable account. The relish which he has of a pun, ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... "Nonsense," laughed Grace, flushing a little at the tribute paid her by the once arrogant junior captain. "You don't know me at all. I have just as many faults as other girls, with a few extra ones thrown in. I have no claim to a pedestal. I hope we shall be friends for the rest of our ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... 'union' indefinitely; but, on the contrary, they greeted his triumph with enormous enthusiasm. Their feeling was explained by the comment of an innkeeper. 'Venezelos!' he said: 'Why, he is a man who can say "No". He won't stand any nonsense. If you try to get round him, he'll put you in irons.' And clearly he had hit the mark. Venezelos would in any case have done well, because he is a clever man with an excellent power of judgement; but acuteness is a common Greek virtue, and if he has done brilliantly, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... "Nonsense! I've got the waxed silk all ready and chosen the right-sized needle and I'll promise not to jump or screech more than I can help. We'll make a tiny lead-pencil dot right in the middle of the lobe, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the tribe of Fazarah and of the family of Zyad, felt their hearts swell with rage. "Do you hear him, brother?" said Haml to Hadifah; "come, that is enough," he added, turning towards Carwash. "All that you have said about Dahir is absolute nonsense—for at present there are no horses better or finer than mine, and those ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... is nonsense. You know as well as I do that you should not marry a man when there is a doubt whether he can keep a house over your ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... "Nonsense!" exclaimed the other. "I employ you! I'm putting up the money for this work, and I want the facts!—I want ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... subject of a furious controversy. One party held that God had wonderfully brought this precious volume to light, for the guidance of His Church at a most critical moment. The other party wondered that any importance could be attached to the nonsense of a nameless scribbler of the thirteenth century. Much was written about the deprivations of Chrysostom and Photius, of Nicolaus Mysticus and Cosmas Atticus. But the case of Abiathar, whom Solomon put out of the sacerdotal ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... come to run away with me, don't you? Well, that is simply nonsense. Look at yourself, my good friend, and tell me if a girl such as I am can be in love with a man like you. As to that small loan, it does not pay me, I assure you, by half, for the sublime little ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... and thin the pair of us, and the wrinkles showed up in Falkenberg's drawn face; neither of us could eat as we used. And by way of trying to hide our troubles from each other, I went about talking all sorts of cheerful nonsense, while Falkenberg bragged loudly at every meal of how he'd got to eating too much of late, and was getting slack and out ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... do stop that nonsense, for the rain will soon be here!" she laughed in spite of herself, as the round freckled face of her boy on hands and knees appeared with a grin from ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... "Nonsense; call him," said Charles II., knitting his black brows together; "every one seems to be sentimental here. There, look at Miss Stewart, who is wiping her eyes,—now ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... but, lo! a pun trails accidentally off the journalist's pen, or an odd collocation of ideas jostle each other in his brain: the writer at once stops his instructive reasoning; he goes off the main line and careers bounding down some devious side-path of entertaining nonsense. Our home papers are almost uniformly staid; they are written conscientiously, laboriously, commendably. But, after all, the French are right in trying to inject as much entertainment as possible into the daily record of ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... I repeat there is some use in reiterating a truth, lest it be forgotten; so I will say this much further: we all know what people have said about the curse of labour, and what heavy and grievous nonsense are the more part of their words thereupon; whereas indeed the real curses of craftsmen have been the curse of stupidity, and the curse of injustice from within and from without: no, I cannot suppose there is anybody here who would think it ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... if you like. It's all nonsense. What are you doing? studying? Nonsense! there's time enough for studying when you are at ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... utter this idle nonsense, Henri, when a fresh body is in the house! This lady counted them but now, and there are four; three was the number that I showed the Piedmontese noble whom I led from Aoste, the day ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... will impress the reader most in reading Negro Folk Rhymes is their good-natured drollery and sparkling nonsense. I believe this is very important. Many have recounted in our hearing, the descriptions of "backwoods" Negro picnics. I have witnessed some of them where the good-natured vender of ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... "Nonsense; it does not," Jane contradicted. "Send them but don't be silly about it, Polly wouldn't think of letting you have ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... present protestations. What else have you? You have the presence of this Popery also where Protestantism alone ought to be known. You have it dishonestly intruded into the temples of Christian truth; and you have the pernicious nonsense of miserable and disgraceful antics obtruded into what men call divine worship, utterly beneath the dignity of sensible men. You have another thing. You have infidelity, and in the pulpit too—the pulpit in high places—infidelity in its worst form. You have all this, and no power, and very little ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... wit enough to see what is very plainly revealed. When I walked with Hilda to-day I noticed that her eye followed thee unceasingly, and although she talked to me glibly enough, her thoughts were wandering, so that she uttered absolute nonsense at times—insomuch that I would have laughed had I not been jealous of what I deemed the mutual love of Ada and thee. No, Erling, thy suit will prosper, depend on't. It is I who have reason to despond, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... sleep, Lilly, like a good child. Our girl has got too much sense to fill her head up with such nonsense." ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... disgust me with variety, for I cannot form an idea of a greater torment than being obliged to speak continually without time for recollection. I know not whether it proceeds from my mortal hatred of all constraint; but if I am obliged to speak, I infallibly talk nonsense. What is still worse, instead of learning how to be silent when I have absolutely nothing to say, it is generally at such times that I have a violent inclination; and, endeavoring to pay my debt of conversation as speedily ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... and, now I have declared my intention of marrying your daughter, no doubt they will at once withdraw their pretensions. My Ambassador has orders, therefore, to make arrangements for the Princess to come and be married to me without delay—for I attach no importance at all to the farrago of nonsense which you have caused to be published all over the world about this Ice Mountain. If the Princess really has no heart, be assured that I shall not concern myself about it, since, if anybody can help her to discover one, it is ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... despicable and absurd, will not, by any association with splendid titles, become rational or great; that the most important affairs, by an intermixture of an unseasonable levity, may be made contemptible; and that the robes of royalty can give no dignity to nonsense or to folly. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... yer nonsense! Dan didn' mean it." The Snipe slipped an arm under the invalid's head and rearranged the pillow of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... candidly acknowledge that I have met with one person who bore evidence to its intoxicating power, such as staggered my own incredulity; for he was a surgeon, and had himself taken opium largely. I happened to say to him that his enemies (as I had heard) charged him with talking nonsense on politics, and that his friends apologized for him by suggesting that he was constantly in a state of intoxication from opium. Now the accusation, said I, is not prima facie and of necessity an absurd one; but the defence is. To my surprise, however, he insisted that ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... fourscore, hurkling over the embers, with the stump of a pipe in her toothless mouth? Is it so sad a thing indeed to be alone? or to have one's motions circumscribed within the narrowest imaginable limits? Nonsense all! ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... flying pony's rein and brought the animal to a halt. "Nonsense," he said, roughly, "you're crazy, Chris. Come on all, let's see what's scared him so." He spurred forward followed by the others and still retaining his hold upon the bridle of Chris' pony, in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "Nonsense, man!" Edgar went on. "This is medicine, not wine, and you must take something of the sort or you won't be fit to travel. I shall get some fellah's clothes for myself, a basket of food and other things to take out to your father, ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... education; 'interest' must be assiduously awakened in everything, difficulties must be smoothed away. Soft pedagogics have taken the place of the old steep and rocky path to learning. But from this lukewarm air the bracing oxygen of effort is left out. It is nonsense to suppose that every step in education can be interesting. The fighting impulse must often be appealed to. Make the pupil feel ashamed of being scared at fractions, of being 'downed' by the law of falling bodies; rouse ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... "Hold your nonsense, child: you are as bad as the boy himself," replied granny. "Boys are never ruined by education; girls ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... "Oh, nonsense! After we've travelled all these millions of miles together do you really expect me to believe ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... foulest pen, Or fairest handled by the sons of men. 'Twill also show what is upon it writ, Be it wisely, or nonsense for want of wit, Each blot and blur it also will expose To thy next readers, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... husband's vanity so well, although he rather reluctantly paid the cost. There, too, is the original manuscript of that entertaining Diary, wherein Pepys daguerrotyped the age in which he lived, and himself with all his sense and nonsense. That Diary would have remained one of the invisible treasures of libraries, for it was written in a cipher of his own invention, but, by a very curious chance, the key to that cipher was unintentionally betrayed through comparison with another ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... "Oh, nonsense! Who ever heard of a man pulling out in a steeplechase to avoid striking another horse? I have heard of a man pulling out to avoid killing his own horse; but that boy pulled out because his horse refused. ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... darkness a shadowy form approached her. It seemed to her that it was that of a man of superhuman size—one of the giants who, Biddy had told her, lay buried in the long barrows on the edge of the bog. But this was nonsense. She planned what words she would say to him. Abreast of her he stopped, and stared at her white dress. Then suddenly he cried, "Gabrielle!" in a voice that she remembered well. It was Radway's. In a moment ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... "Nonsense!" cried Dick, "if 'twas there, you'd bring it out fast enough. I sha'n't believe a word of the story ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... if you can. I dare you to prove it. But I must leave this place. Such nonsense shall not detain me longer. I know that you are mad.-Captain, release me. Do not heed the ravings ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... "Oh, say, that's nonsense!" burst out Phil, quickly. "Why, we proved Dave's identity beyond question, when we came back from our trip ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... weel as I can min' tho nonsense o' 't—and ca'd him the gowk he was; and syne I sent him awa wi' a flee in 's lug: hadna he the impidence to fa' oot upo' me for carin mair aboot Steenie nor the likes o' him! As gien ever he cud come 'ithin ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... universe were anticipated and promulgated three millenniums ago by Hindu rishis. This of course is a method of insanity which will soon give way to a newer craze. For the present it helps to evade or confuse the issue in certain minds; but as it is in itself a substitution of nonsense for argument and reason it will not long deceive any one, not ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... be depended on to talk frivolous nonsense," said her elder sister scornfully. "It's the silly sentimental fashion in which both you and father treat work-people that makes them so difficult to deal with. If the working ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... to conceive what delightful nonsense this barbaric elucidation might suggest, if a carouse, or love, woman or drunkenness were defined in this vein; and he would weave in amusing attacks on earlier, less intrepid speakers, who, as Vilsing put it, reminded one of the bashful forget-me-not, inasmuch as you could read in the play ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the present text of Ammianus, we read Asper, quidem, sed ad lenitatem propensior; which forms a sentence of contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript, Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we perceive a ray of light in the substitution of the word vafer. If we venture to change lenitatem into lexitatem, this alteration of a single ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... water of the region round the town of Cazembe flowed into the Luambadzi, or Luambezi (Zambesi), they remarked with a smile, "He says, that the Loapula flows into the Zambesi—did you ever hear such nonsense?" or words to that effect. We were forced to admit, that according to native accounts, our previous impression of the Zambesi's draining the country about Cazembe's had been a mistake. Their geographical opinions are now only stated, without any ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... incidents and 17, 75 and 84 seem the most tangible from the standpoint of description, of all those reported, and the most difficult to explain away as sheer nonsense." ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... Buddhism or by Chinese philosophy, of the form of the heavens and earth and the manner in which they came into existence, are all inventions of men who exercised all their ingenuity over the problem, and inferred that such things must actually be the case. As for the Indian account, it is nonsense fit only to deceive women and children, and I do not think it worthy of reflection. The Chinese theories, on the other hand, are based upon profound philosophical speculations and sound extremely plausible, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... mere nonsense to dream of any enduring peace, but whether we are making a lasting and friendly peace with Germany or merely a sort of truce of military operations that will be no truce in the economic war against Hohenzollern resources, ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... But why nonsense? Is anything more commonly said, than that beauties eclipse the sun? Has not Pope the thought and ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... present is its elated vivacity, which neither fire, nor pain, nor grief can long subdue. Acutely sensitive to all these depressing elements, his animal spirits lift him like an aeroplane, and he is above us in a moment, soaring through clouds of nonsense under a sky of unruffled gaiety. In our old literature, of which he is plainly a student, he has found a neglected author who is wholly to his taste. This is Skelton, Henry VIII's Rabelaisian laureate. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... boy, that attitude is all damned nonsense. Here you are, young, sound, with a heart that will recover in no time, provided you keep liquor out of it. And you talk like that! What the devil have you been up to, to land in this bog?" It was a ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... something you meant to be called by that name? Nonsense, child—folly—moon-beam hallucination! Child! do you know that this is an unpardonable waste of time? Do you remember that opportunities of improvement are given you to enable you hereafter to secure an honorable independence? ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... safeguard against malaria. To be sure, there is nothing of that sort to be apprehended at sea, but still habits are inveterate; second nature, as the moralists and copy-books say, as if there ever could be more than one. What nonsense these wiseacres talk, to be sure! But there is cream, you see, for those who like it—boiled down and bottled for the use of the children before leaving home—one of Dominica's notions;" and here the smiling maid, with her little, respectful courtesy, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... occasion rescued another woman by blacking the eyes of six gamekeepers, who had been set upon her by some noble lord or another. Then, while the ale sparkles with a richer colour as the evening lights grow deeper, the talk gets naturally upon “lords” in general, gentility nonsense, and “hoity-toityism” as the canker at the ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... and pray let me hear no more of this nonsense, for, ridiculous as it may appear, it is to me very painful. Leave me now—I am nervous and low-spirited. Good bye. Come this evening with your sister, I ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... (Jes. in Can., XXXIV.) that the remarkable forbearance observed by some tribes was the result of superstition; and he adds: "To make the Indian a hero of romance is mere nonsense." ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... word to him—not a message of love or of repentance or of hope. His brain was in a turmoil of its own. His white lips were muttering delirious nonsense; his soul was fluttering from scene to scene and year to year, like a restless dragon-fly. He was young; he was old; he was married; he was a bachelor; he was at home; he was in his store; he was pondering campaigns of business, slicing pennies ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the thought of the alternative. He sprang up and thrust the thought aside. "Nonsense! I'll be all right!" he cried. "To please you I'll keep the ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... "Nonsense!" cried Gerald. "There's no such thing as a lost soul. And stop that sort of talk, Ephy. No matter what you think, there's ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... "Seems nonsense to go to bed now, doesn't it?" said Steve, as they returned on deck to see the island beginning to grow distant as the vessel steamed slowly north-north-east, about a mile away from the solid blue-and-silver wall of ice on ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... wide-open, black-lashed gray eyes flashed a glance like a menace, like a sword, and then suddenly smiled as if the sun had jumped from a bank of storm-clouds. And I looked into those wonderful eyes and we were friends. As fast as that. Most people would think it nonsense, but it happened so. A few people will understand. He took me out to dinner, and it was as if no one else was at the table. I was aware only of the one heroic personality. At first I dared not speak of his history, and then, without planning or intention, ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... indeed maintain that these and every other instance of angelic apparitions (e.g. to Manoah and to Abraham offering up Isaac) occurred during sleep, for that no one with his eyes open ever could see an angel, but this is mere nonsense. (39) The sole object of such commentators seems to be to extort from Scripture confirmations of Aristotelian quibbles and their own inventions, a proceeding which I regard as the acme ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... the question; instead, she blushed furiously. "We are talking nonsense—and I don't know how I can face my father to-morrow," ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... impatient and inconsiderate creature upon the globe as yourself. It would be unpardonably rude in us to send the man away, if he is a charlatan, without letting him see me. Have him up, by all means, and let us hear what priggish nonsense he has to say. He will feel the easier when ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... "Nonsense, George," said Kirk. "One of the most entertaining ladies I have ever met. Already I love her like a son. But how she escaped from Bloomingdale beats me. There's ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... What nonsense, Charles! Though rather stiff, And foreign from the style of Twenty, There's still enough of cricket stuff Remaining for the pastime. Plenty! Why, such a creed as now you preach Is only fit for scoffs and jeers; Wait till you lose your wind and ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... then,' she continued, 'keep out of danger. If your troop wishes to charge into a safe place, let 'em. You don't want brevet rank, or any of that nonsense, I hope. Make as much bluster and row as you like, but for Heaven's sake keep out of harm's way.... You need not write to me every day, but every third or fourth day, for the postage is serious. If you should happen to kill any Sikhs, search them, and pull down their back hair; that's where ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Populists were hated and feared as if they practiced black magic. What they wanted is on the point of realization. To some of us it looks like a drop in the bucket—a slight part of vastly greater plans. But how stupid was the fear of Populism, what unimaginative nonsense it was to suppose twenty years ago that the program was the road to the end of ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... not call that nonsense; it is but a good-natured way of stating the case in the aspect it presents from the De Sauty point of view; for tightly laced as poor Mother Earth already is, with railroad corsets and steamship stays, growing small by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... that the Echo has now (1888) made a name for decent and sensible writing, having abandoned the "blatant" department to the Star (see, for the nonsense about a non-existent Alderman Waterlow, its issue ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton |
