"Ridiculous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the intrigues of cabinets from her long residence in Rome, where she maintained a princely establishment. She was vain of her person and fond of admiration, foibles which never left her, and hence her dress in every season of life was too youthful for her age and sometimes even ridiculous. She possessed a simple and natural eloquence, saying always what she chose, and as she chose, and nothing more. Secret with regard to herself; faithful to the confidence of others; gifted with an exterior, nay, an interior, of gayety, good humor, and evenness of temper, which rendered ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... all to be as free as at home, but we dislike the wasteful habit of leaving food on the plate. No vice is with us the less ridiculous for ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... prevalent opinion concerning what is generally called a death-watch, and which is vulgarly believed to foretel the death of some one in the family. "This is," observes a writer in the Philosophical Transactions, "a ridiculous fancy crept into vulgar heads, and employed to terrify and affright weak people as a monitor of approaching death." Therefore, to prevent such causeless fears, I shall take this opportunity to undeceive the world, by ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... gather, was thus. Whilst he sat at meat, casting his eyes upon a noble surloin at the lower end of the table, he cried out, 'Bring hither that surloin, sirrah, for 'tis worthy a more honourable post, being, as I may say, not sur-loin, but sir-loin, the noblest joint of all;' which ridiculous and desperate pun raised the wisdom and reputation of England's Solomon to the highest."—Traditions, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... solidarity on the part of this genus. (Such a close solidarity would seem crushing, to others; but that is another matter.) It won't be true concern, however, it will be merely a blind inherited instinct. He'll forget what he's read, the very next hour, or moment. Yet there he will faithfully sit, the ridiculous creature, reading of bombs in Spain or floods in Thibet, and especially insisting on all the news he can get of the kind our race loved when they scampered and fought in the forest, news that will stir his most primitive simian feelings,—wars, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... if I did not know that poetic enthusiasm is very ridiculous in a criticism—the action is brought before us with such power that this tragedy may very well be compared to a German oak, on which every branch flourishes luxuriantly, and whose summit is nearer to heaven than to earth. The whole play contains nothing but characters, not a single ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... linens, tapestries, and other assorted articles for this first great speculation to Cathay, via the North Pole, stowed on board the fleet, that nearly half the summer had passed before anchor was weighed in the Meuse. The pompous expedition was thus predestined to an almost ridiculous failure. Yet it was in the hands of great men, both on shore and sea. Maurice, Barneveld, and Maalzoon had personally interested themselves in the details of its outfitting, Linschoten sailed as chief commissioner, the calm and intrepid Barendz was upper pilot of the whole fleet, and a man ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... reached London, and I shall not believe in the resources of the provinces until they prove their existence by raising the siege. I am very curious to discover what is thought of Paris by the world. There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. If really by holding out for several months the situation can be altered for the better, the Parisians are right to do so, but if the Government is only humbugging them with false intelligence, if they are simply destroying ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Enid should have taken such a dislike to her teacher, for she kept up a state of ill-feeling among the girls which otherwise would probably have died away. Absurd trifles were magnified and made much of, and ridiculous grievances were nursed and cherished. One day Miss Rowe set the upper division a grammar exercise consisting of two questions. The first was long and very difficult; it was on the origin of the English language, and required a certain ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... in 1596, correcting "antecessors" into "grandfather." Halliwell-Phillipps only mentions one at that date, but Mr. Stephen Tucker,[54] Somerset Herald, gives facsimiles of both. Halliwell-Phillipps calls these ridiculous assertions, and asserts that both parties were descended from obscure country yeomen. The heralds state they were "solicited," and "on credible report" informed of the facts. We must not forget that all the friends intimately associated either with the Ardens or the Shakespeares (with ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... signories of Confolens, Chabanes, Chateaumorant, Lombert, ceded to a captain for a ridiculous price; now it's the fief of Fontaine Milon, of Angers, the fortress of Saint Etienne de Mer Morte acquired by Guillaume Le Ferron for a song; again it's the chateaux of Blaison and of Chemille forfeited to Guillaume ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... seated herself as if she were a noble lady, a fille de qualite, instead of a mere minister's widow and a watchmaker's daughter. Pretend ignorance that precedence was to be here observed! That was another Parisian piece of impudence, above all in one who showed such ridiculous airs as to wipe her face with her own handkerchief instead of the table-cloth, and to be reluctant to help herself from the genera dish of potage with her own spoon. Even that might have been overlooked if she would have regaled them with a full and particular ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dorothy, with the eight pins on her shirtwaist, and a guilty consciousness that Miss Mills, who taught "Lit. II" was staring at them from the faculty row, Betty resolved that she was going to be different—to keep her room in order, not to do ridiculous things at ridiculous times, and always to ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... knew, &c.] There is nothing more ridiculous than the various opinions of authors about the seat of Paradise. Sir. Walter Raleigh has taken a great deal of pains to collect them, in the beginning of his History of the World; where those, who are unsatisfied, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... convinced me still further that what I had heard last night was the truth. Adam Stallman accompanied them; he was grave, but kind and courteous as usual, and seemed to take great pains to answer all the questions, some of them not a little ridiculous, which were put to him. Mr Vernon invited him to join the luncheon-party in the ward-room, so I did ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... regret at not being able to erase them from my memory that I recaptured the years in which, in the eyes of this same Swann who was at this moment before me in the Champs-Elysees, and to whom, fortunately, Gilberte had perhaps not mentioned my name, I had so often, in the evenings, made myself ridiculous by sending to ask Mamma to come upstairs to my room to say good-night to me, while she was drinking coffee with him and my father and my grandparents at the table in the garden.) He told Gilberte that she might play one game; he ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the loyalty of a clanswoman, the hero-worship of a maiden aunt, and the idolatry due to a god. No matter what he had asked of her, ridiculous or tragic, she would have done it and joyed to do it. Her passion, for it was nothing less, entirely filled her. It was a rich physical pleasure to make his bed or light his lamp for him when he was absent, to pull off his wet boots or ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... persuasion on my part keep quiet. On inquiring from the Balyuz the cause of their violent discussions, he informed me they were drawing lots to see who should be my Abban, and those of the seven foreign servants I had with me. The bare idea of eight Abbans was too ridiculous, and their persistency made it beyond a joke. I instantly ordered the sails to be hauled down, and had my instructions from Lieutenant Burton about Abbans proclaimed to the whole crew: that the Balyuz was my Ras Cafila, and the other foreigners my protectors. ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... it were just like a week-day. So while every one else was in evening dress, I more than once—at seventeen—came to these Sunday gatherings on a winter evening, purposely, in a high woolen frock, sternly but uncomfortably conscious of being sublime—if only one were not ridiculous! The Rector, "Mrs. Pat," Mr. Bywater, myself, and perhaps a couple of undergraduates—often a bewildered and silent couple—I see that little vanished company in the far past so plainly! Three of them are dead—and for me the gray walls of Lincoln ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... But when business is to be done, the eye-stalks jump bolt upright side by side, like a pair of little lighthouses, and survey the field of battle in a fashion utterly ludicrous. Moreover, as if he were not ridiculous enough even thus, he is (as Mr. Wood well puts it) like a small man gifted with one arm of Hercules, and another of Tom Thumb. One of his claw arms, generally the left, has dwindled to a mere nothing, and is not seen; while along the whole front of his shell lies folded one mighty right ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... swallow up a whole box of his proper pills. "Very well," I say, "that must be egregious. It is cannot be possible;" but they bring little a box, not more grand nor my thumb. It seem to be to me very ridiculous; so I returned to my hotel at despair how I could possibility learn a language what meant so many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... conflict begins late, and advances without appreciable pause and with accelerating speed to the catastrophe, is a main cause of the painful tension just described. To this may be added that, after the conflict has begun, there is very little relief by way of the ridiculous. Henceforward at any rate Iago's humour never raises a smile. The clown is a poor one; we hardly attend to him and quickly forget him; I believe most readers of Shakespeare, if asked whether there is a clown ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... ingrate, indeed, if one failed to recognize the great good that an extreme reform movement may do. Some very precious increments of progress have resulted even from the most extreme and ridiculous reactions against the drill and formalism of the older schools. Let me briefly summarize these really substantial ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... Spectator owed the most natural and elegant, if not the most original, of its humorous sketches of human character and social eccentricities, its good-humoured satires on ridiculous features in manners and on corrupt symptoms in public taste; these topics, however, making up a department in which Steele was fairly on a level with his more famous co-adjutor. But Steele had neither learning, nor taste, nor critical acuteness sufficient to qualify him ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... absurd story, a rather ridiculous one, but if the surgeon had made the mistake Mr. Beard charged, he would not have made any greater than is made every day at the marriage altar. Young women, I would not silence the love songs in your hopeful hearts, but I would have every betrothed girl demand of her ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... from it, and the three of us sat and stared at the houses without speaking a word. We really had nothing to say. We were like the profane man who could not "do the subject justice," the whole situation was so painfully ridiculous and humiliating that words were tame and we did not know ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... become, in good truth, a godsend. I wonder why Providence does not cause a clear, cold fountain to bubble up at our doorstep; methinks it would not be unreasonable to pray for such a favor. At present we are under the ridiculous necessity of sending to the outer world for water. Only imagine Adam trudging out of Paradise with a bucket in each hand, to get water to drink, or for Eve to bathe in! Intolerable! (though our stout handmaiden really fetches our water). In other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... thank fortune, from the ridiculous to the sublime, just as it is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. Another illustration of a perfect nervous system: You remember how our Lord spent a whole day in preaching, in healing, working deeds of kindness, in pouring ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... in Egypt, the human intellect arrived with the lapse of time at something beyond this childish and primitive belief. Men did not, however, repel it altogether as false and ridiculous; they continued to cherish it at the bottom of their hearts, and to allow it to impose certain lines of action upon them which otherwise could hardly be explained or justified. As in Egypt, and in later years in Greece, a new and more abstract conception was imposed ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... at me. "It must seem to you ridiculous. But I am a different person now—very different. Now I am ready, eager for anything. Death can be nothing to me now, or if that is too bold, at least I may say that I am prepared to meet him—anywhere—at any time. I want to meet him—I want ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... hair, unshaven, haggard face, bloodshot eyes, and slovenly dishevelled dress, had appeared repulsive enough while in the boat; but, now, as he stood dripping with water and covered with mud, there was a touch of the ridiculous in his appearance that brought a grin to the unlovely face of his rescuer, and caused her to exclaim with unnecessary frankness: "I'll be dad burned if you-all ain't a thing ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... my long tail switched the roses out of the bowl in the middle of the table. That confused me slightly, and in trying not to upset anything else I stepped flat into the butter, and dragged my little plaid flannel skirt through the applesauce. Why they persist in dressing me in this ridiculous fashion is more ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... till it was read over, though the author has fallen into the common mistake of romance-writers; intending a virtuous character, and not knowing how to draw it; the first step of his heroine (leaving her patroness's house) being altogether absurd and ridiculous, justly entitling her to all the ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... folded up her own sheet of paper, put it into its envelope, and laid it in her desk. She felt pretty certain now of being elected as one of the lucky three, and no one need ever know that she had peeped at Kitty's answers. After all, but for this ridiculous and sudden prohibition on the part of Sir John Wallis, Kitty would have helped her with her English History all the afternoon. Now, of course, she could not ask her, but never mind, she knew what she ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... cock-fight between himself and Gerald Tribe, on the question of religion, and it was punctuated by roars of laughter from Leonetta, Vanessa, Guy Tyrrell, and even Stephen Fearwell; while the unfortunate Mrs. Tribe, feeling that her husband was being made to look ridiculous for the edification of the rest of the party, would repeatedly interrupt the proceedings by urging her spouse to "come to bed." This, however, he always resolutely refused to do, much to the satisfaction of everybody present; and the unequal ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... ridiculous!" exclaimed Charles. "Such silly people deserve to be imposed upon, for not using the faculties they ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... chiefly effected by vessels going coastwise."[247] The two methods were not incompatible. Besides the sea-going vessels already mentioned as lying in New York alone, there were there over four hundred coasters. It was impossible to watch so many. The ridiculous gunboats, identified with this Administration, derisively nicknamed "Jeffs"[248] by the unbelieving, were called into service to arrest the evil; but neither their numbers nor their qualities fitted them to cope with the ubiquity and speed of their nimble opponents. "The larger part ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... occupies too much time, attention, and money. For my own part, I confess I am most affected by female dress, and although certainly I like to see women well dressed, and would rather see them a little too fine than slovenly, I am often pained at witnessing the extravagance and, to me, ridiculous taste exhibited. Whenever I see a handsome and expensive dress trailing in the dirt, I regard it as culpable waste and in bad taste, and when I see it accidentally trodden on I am not sorry. I am inclined to believe that many women can hardly find time or opportunity ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... moment; but in the end he would shake his head doubtfully, as much as to say that this was all very well, but that there were depths in the Dutch official nature which no one but himself had ever fathomed. Perfectly ridiculous. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... absolutely ridiculous, Mr. Terwilliger," replied the earl. "I'd look well marrying a draught from a dark cavern, as you call it, now wouldn't I? To say nothing of the impossibility of a Mugley marrying a cook. ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... frequent intercourse now existing between Europe and the United States, we derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous. All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism, strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner stories. Our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the sultan, who with his vizier was traversing the city, disguised as merchants. Finding the doors open, they entered, and beheld the cauzee and his companion in the height of their mirth, who welcomed them, and they sat down. At length, after many ridiculous tricks, the fisherman starting up, exclaimed, "I am the sultan!" "And I," rejoined the cauzee, "am my lord the bashaw!" "Bashaw!" continued the fisherman, "if I choose I can strike off thy head." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... rest in it; it tires. A man who plays with it must be on his guard every second. To spend a lifetime on it is ridiculous—a whole life of intelligent effort, against perpetual, brutal, inanimate resistance—one endless uninterrupted fight—a ceaseless human manoeuvre against senseless menace; and then the counter attack of the lifeless monster, the bellowing advance, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... dreadfully old after all. Perhaps she mightn't turn out quite such a wet blanket as the rest; though, from experience, he couldn't connect any pleasure with relatives' visits: they were nasty pills that had to be swallowed. He feared and disliked his father; Aunt Zara had been sheerly ridiculous, with her frills and simpers—the boys had imitated her for weeks after—and once, most shameful of all, his stepmother had come down and publicly wept over him. His cheeks still burnt at the remembrance; and he had been glad to hear that she was dead: served her ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... went on aiming at him. Fruitlessly did Clare assure him that neither would the dog do any harm, nor allow any one to hit him. It was from very weariness that at last he desisted, and wiping his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, turned upon Clare in the smothered wrath that knows itself ridiculous. For all the time the cook stood by, shaking with delighted laughter ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... same time. "For to tell you the truth, my friend, I think you are rather a white-livered sort of rogue for a colonel, to think of hanging, drowning, shooting, and poisoning yourself about such a ridiculous story as that. One of these modes would be too much, but as to all the four—nonsense. I tell you that at this moment I don't know what to make out of ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... very ridiculous. The bluejackets on our deck were grinning quietly, while even Ransome himself (much to the fore in lending a hand) had to enlarge his wistful smile for ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... dissuade her. It was ridiculous. It was monstrous. She was not strong enough. It would be throwing her life away, as surely as to transplant a tender orchid to that burning sage-brush country. But in the end she said: "Well, Bee, then I'll ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... greatest contempt; employments are lucrative in an inverse ratio to their usefulness (See Rousseau, "De l'Inegalite parmi les Hommes", note 7.): the jeweller, the toyman, the actor gains fame and wealth by the exercise of his useless and ridiculous art; whilst the cultivator of the earth, he without whom society must cease to subsist, struggles through contempt and penury, and perishes by that famine which but for his unceasing exertions would annihilate the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... advocating the per se doctrines, if sincere, can continue in the constant use of slave grown products, without a perpetual violation of conscience and of all moral law. Taking them under protest, against the slavery which produced them, is ridiculous. Refusing to fellowship the slaveholder, while eagerly appropriating the products of the labor of the slave, which he brings in his hand, is contemptible. The most noted case of the kind, is that of the British Committee, who had charge of the preliminary ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... foolishly superstitious, and exceedingly fond of soothsayers and magicians. After the death of Constantius, he openly professed idolatry, and by besmearing himself with the blood of impious victims, pretended to efface the character of baptism. He was deceived in almost every step by ridiculous omens, oracles, and augurs, as may be seen in his heathen historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, (b. 22.) Maximus, the magician, and others of that character, were his chief confidants. He endeavored, by the black art, to rival the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... what I want you to do,' said the latter. 'Go to this Count Leven and tell him it's a cash transaction or nothing, and that he runs no risk. Find out what he'll really take, but don't come talking to me about five thousand pounds or anything of that kind, for that's ridiculous. Tell him that if proceedings are not begun by the first of May his wife won't get any more money from Van Torp, and he won't get any more from his wife. Use any other argument that strikes you. That's your business, because that's what I pay you for. What I want is the result, and ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... exceedingly. I think I was annoyed that he should have seen the young lady while I had not. I also resented his toasting her before a stranger. I knew he could not have met her, and his pretence of enthusiasm made him appear quite ridiculous. He looked at me mournfully, shaking his head as though it were impossible for him to give me ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... nearest refuge, and that, I considered, must be at least twenty miles distant, altogether too far to dream of swimming to it, although I rather prided myself upon my prowess as a long-distance swimmer. But twenty miles! The idea was ridiculous, especially in that heavy sea, in my exhausted condition, without food, and with no means of getting any. I looked rather longingly at the smaller fragments of wreckage floating in my neighbourhood; if I could but secure one of them of sufficient size to support me ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Theodore, having perceived in the enemy's camp some Europeans, had sent orders for our immediate execution; the fulfilment of the sentence resting with the Empress, who was residing at Gondar, and that his (De Bisson's) agent was using his influence to stay the execution. Absurd and ridiculous as were these reports, they were not the less productive of great distress to the families and friends ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... were payments of the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five millions had been for the post-office, which I knew to be untrue; that ten millions had been for the Maine boundary war, which I not only knew to be untrue, but supremely ridiculous also; and when I saw that he was stupid enough to hope that I would permit such groundless and audacious assertions to go unexposed,—I readily consented that, on the score both of veracity and sagacity, the audience should judge ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... a most serious expression of countenance: (31) You are pleased to laugh at me. Pray, do you find it so ridiculous my wishing to improve my health by exercise? or to enjoy my victuals better? to sleep better? or is it the sort of exercise I set my heart on? Not like those runners of the long race, (32) to have my legs grow muscular and my shoulders leaner in ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... wanting more! Well, they won't get it. I think Steve is ridiculous with his banquets and bonuses and all, and upon my word, Mary Faithful has as good an Oriental rug in her office as I have in my house. Tell us something ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Francisco, and although Dona Pomposa and Aunt Anastacia began at once to make the wedding outfit, Eulogia appeared to forget that she ever had given a promise of marriage. She was as great a belle as ever, for no one believed that she would keep faith with any man, much less with such a ridiculous scrap as Garfias. Her flirtations were more calmly audacious than ever, her dancing more spirited; in every ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... in imagining there can be revolt," she sternly replied. "These are the ridiculous stories of those who favor trouble; the king's authority will soon ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... urn that stood upon the table: Having remarked this with great curiosity and attention, he presently turned the cock, and received the water upon his hand: As soon as he felt himself scalded, he roared out, and began to dance about the cabin with the most extravagant and ridiculous expressions of pain and astonishment: The other Indians not being able to conceive what was the matter with him, stood staring at him in amaze, and not without some mixture of terror. The surgeon, however, who had innocently been the cause of the mischief, applied ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... candid as to call that the opinion of a party, which they hear in a coffeehouse, or over a bottle from some warm young people, whom it is odds but they have provoked to say more than they believed, by some positions as absurd and ridiculous of their own. And so it proved in this very instance: for, asking one of these gentlemen, what it was that provoked those he had been disputing with, to advance such a paradox? he assured me in a very calm manner, it was nothing in the world, but that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... proud of their power of swelling and puffing themselves out in this way; and I think it is about as droll a sight as you can well see to look at a cage full of these pigeons puffing and blowing themselves out in this ridiculous manner. ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... us isn't the only piece of bad news which reached me this morning. Have you heard of Sister Cecilia's adventure with her counterpart?" Evelyn nodded and tried to repress a smile. "It is difficult not to smile, so ridiculous is her story; and if I didn't look upon the matter as very serious, I shouldn't be able ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... sensible girl, Vera. I observed the fact on the afternoon I met you in New York City when you made no effort to argue with me in connection with the escape of that ridiculous burglar." ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... ridiculous it was to think of Dolly ever being fifty. Ah, it is love alone that holds the secret ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... poetry, the flames of eloquence." [Applause.] He had the courage of his convictions, he counselled not with his fears. He neither looked to the past with regret nor to the future with apprehension. He might have been a zealot—he was never a hypocrite; he might have been eccentric—he was never ridiculous. He was a Hercules rather than an Adonis. In his warfare he fired hot shot; he did not send in flags of truce; he led forlorn hopes; he did not follow in the wake of charges. When he went forth with his sledge-hammer logic and his saw-mill ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Hope sitting up on the portico roof I wish I could see how she looked when she was riding the waves on the prow of a gallant vessel. That's where she ought to be, I heard a man say. He said Hope squatting on a portico roof may look ridiculous, but Hope breasting the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... goin', and that it'll take you about an hour and a half. I don't want her a-gettin' scared and a-hollerin' 'round and a-sendin' some one after you, like she did that day you didn't git home till dark. She acted ridiculous, as if she thought you never would come back. I couldn't fer the life of me see what made her do so; it was real silly, and I told her so at the time. I did think, though, that you'd ought to be licked fer not hurryin' ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... let me hear any of that ridiculous nonsense you were talking the other day! I won't have these ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... doesn't sound very ridiculous to me," her husband said. "Plenty of women do become confidential with their ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... else, this sublime and ridiculous superstition, that the pleasure of the pair is somehow blessed to others, and everybody is made happier in their happiness, would serve at least to keep love generous and greathearted. Nor is it quite a baseless superstition after all. Other lovers are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would she not want more to match with them? I don't want her to learn to dress in a style that she cannot honestly afford. I think this love of dress is the ruination of many a young girl. I think this straining after fine things when you are not able to get them, is perfectly ridiculous. I believe in cutting your coat according to your cloth. I saw Mrs. Hempstead's daughter last Sunday dressed up in a handsome light silk, and a beautiful spring hat, and if she or her mother would get sick to-morrow, ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... either like peacocks' feathers make a great show but are neither solid nor useful; or else like apes, if they have some appearance of being rational, are blemished with some absurdity or other, that, when they are attentively considered make them appear ridiculous." But however we may condemn their method, because it rested on their own conception of what the order of nature must be, we cannot but praise their assiduity in conducting ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... himself erect with ridiculous pomposity. Now there are times when the bravest and wisest thing a brave and wise man can do is take to his heels. I have heard my Uncle Jack MacKenzie say that vice and liquor and folly are best frustrated ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... were the only titled persons present; and from both European and American voyagers received a ridiculous amount of homage. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... you care for a place you grow porous, as it were, until after a time you are precisely like blotting-paper. Now, there was Italy, for example. After eight weeks in Venice, you were completely Venetian, from your fan to the ridiculous little crepe shawl you wore because an Italian prince had told you that centuries were usually needed to teach a woman how to wear a shawl, but that you had been born with the art, and the shoulders! Anything but ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... men too often pay for wreaking paltry revenges—writing under morbid memories and narrow and petty grievances—they not only fail in truth and impartiality, but inscribe a kind of grotesque parody of themselves in their effort to make their subject ridiculous, as he did, for example, about the name LewisLouis, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... Juan or Blanche might ultimately have gone in making themselves ridiculous cannot be stated, because at this moment Margaret—prosaic, literal Margaret—appeared on ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... myself—O, what?— A most conspicuous monster! Crown my head, Pile Caesar's purple on me—and what then? My hump shall shorten the imperial robe, My leg peep out beneath the scanty hem, My broken hip shall twist the gown awry; And pomp, instead of dignifying me, Shall be by me made quite ridiculous. The faintest coward would not bear all this: Prodigious courage must be mine, to live; To die asks nothing but weak will, and I Feel like a craven. Let me skulk away Ere life o'ertask me. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... political wisdom centres in Holland House, and the 'Edinburgh Review' is its prophet. There is something in the absolute confidence of Macaulay's political dogmatism which varies between the sublime and the ridiculous. We can hardly avoid laughing at this superlative self-satisfaction, and yet we must admit that it is indicative of a real political force not to be treated with simple contempt. Belief is power, even when ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... concerned, I'm not bothered. That is, I'm not afraid of Ewen and Miller. But Chandler's proposition is another matter. It's plain enough that he wanted our men to join him and go to Edmonton and file papers on this claim. But that isn't as ridiculous as it appears. You know," he said, "Mr. Zept asked me if I hadn't grubstaked these fellows. If they could make it appear that I had, then part of this claim would belong to them. And if they all got together and swore that I had, I don't know how I could prove that they were ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... not ridiculous,' exclaimed Pierre Bedard, whose name will appear later in these pages, 'to wish to make a people's loyalty consist ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... always happens," she reflected, pausing for a moment on the top step. "I hope the Anarchist will 'stay put' this time." She laughed softly at the idea of the Anarchist standing stiff and stationary in her new room. Then the ridiculous side of the encounter dawning on her, she sat down on the stairs and gave ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... What hopes has alcohol destroyed! What resolves it has broken! What promises it has blighted! Think of any or of all these things, and hasten to say with Dr. Johnson that this vice of drink, if long indulged, will render knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible. Oh! how many lost sons of earth, whose lamps of genius blazed only to light their pathway to the tomb, might have achieved an inheritance of immortal fame but for this vice, or ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It found the earth filled ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... lie back in despair, as if howling, "O-o-oh! what a place! No-o-o, I can never go-o-o down there!" His natural composure and courage had vanished utterly in a tumultuous storm of fear. Had the danger been less, his distress would have seemed ridiculous. But in this dismal, merciless abyss lay the shadow of death, and his heartrending cries might well have called Heaven to his help. Perhaps they did. So hidden before, he was now transparent, and one ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... Observe Anne of Austria! What arms! I'll lay odds that her great-grandmother took in washing. There's Romeo, now, with a pair of legs like an old apple tree. The freedom of criticism is mine to-night! Did you ever see such ridiculous ideas of costume? For my part, the robe and the domino for me. All lines are destroyed; nothing is recognizable. My, my! There's Harlequin, too, ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... father, staring at her and waving his hands mysteriously in obedience to Jacob's directions. So ridiculous did he look indeed while thus engaged that Benita had the greatest difficulty in preventing herself from bursting into laughter. This was the only effect which his grimaces and gesticulations produced upon her, although outwardly ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... mouth of the three tailors. Beyond was Fort Garry, unlawfully seized by Riel, and now unlawfully invested by his troops. This was, therefore, a menace to the unlawful combination at the fort. At once the agitator began to dictate terms. If they would come out of their ridiculous hive, and surrender their arms, he would suffer no harm whatever to befall them; but content himself with merely taking them all in a lump, and locking them up prisoners in the fort. He would, however, insist upon other formalities; and, therefore, exhibited a declaration which ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... over your shoulders. He says you were fainting from the smoke when he dragged you out. You must be a little fool to be afraid to come out looking that way. They say that new boarder is a drawing-master, and I seen some of his pictures yesterday; he had some such ridiculous things. He'll caricature me for the amusement of the young men, I know. Only think how my portrait would look taken to-night! and he'll have it, I'm sure, for I noticed him looking at me—the first that reminded ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... become seasick on the voyage, you'll be just as anxious to get back," laughed Mr. Gilroy, causing the girls to giggle in chorus at his ridiculous speech. ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... by the Northern papers that Pope claimed a great victory over Lee and Jackson! It was too much even for the lying editors themselves! The Federal army being hurled back on the Potomac, and then compelled to cross it, it was too transparently ridiculous for the press to contend for the victory. And now they confess to a series of defeats from the 26th June to the culminating calamity of the 30th August. They acknowledge they have been beaten—badly beaten—but they will not admit that our army has crossed into Maryland. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... yourself in her place. She wouldn't like it supposed that I was making love to her. She might consider the whole thing made her look as ridiculous as it ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... ridiculous, dear," said the aunt, giving the little clusters of gray curls that hung about her ears an emphatic shake. "Serious matters should be taken seriously." Whereat Helen pressed her cheek gently against the thin white hand that had been ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... likely to result from the election of General Cass. To unite with those who annexed the new territory, to prevent the extension of slavery in that territory, seemed to him to be in the highest degree absurd and ridiculous. Suppose these gentlemen succeed in electing Mr. Van Buren, they had no specific means to prevent the extension of slavery to New Mexico and California; and General Taylor, he confidently believed, would not encourage it, and would not prohibit its restriction. But if General ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... independent of me," Helen suggested with a smile. "I suppose it's an honest ambition, but isn't the distinction you try to make ridiculous?" ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... 'It seems very ridiculous, very impertinent I fear you will think it,' said Tancred, in a hesitating confused manner, 'but that person, that person who has just left the room; I have a particular reason, I have the greatest desire, to know ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... wishing to live in it—from the first he had never blamed her. He might have managed even had she pulled it about his ears to rebuild it in some fashion, but this was the bitterest, that he knew now for a certainty there had never been any House and the certainty made him ridiculous. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... larger-eyed, strangely thinner, a whitened and somehow a tightened Stella Schump drew up, those ten days later, before the little old row with the little old iron balconies, there was already in the ridiculous patches of front yards a light-green powdering of grass, and from the doorbell of her own threshold there hung quite a little spray of roses, waxy white against a frond of fern and a fold of black. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... the all-powerful? She had not seen him hitherto, and she thought that he looked differently. She had imagined some kind of ghastly face, with malignity petrified in its features; now she saw a great head, fixed on a thick neck, terrible, it is true, but almost ridiculous, for from a distance it resembled the head of a child. A tunic of amethyst color, forbidden to ordinary mortals, cast a bluish tinge on his broad and short face. He had dark hair, dressed, in the fashion introduced by ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... ideals of his wife were so low and commonplace that she influenced his career by antithesis. His soul was ahungered for the bread of life, and stones were given him in way of the dull, the ugly, the affected, the smug, the ridiculous. Wagner's life was a revolt from the ossified commonplace, a struggle for right adjustment—a heart tragedy. And all this reaching out of the spirit, all the prayers, hopes, fears and travail of his soul, are told and told again in his poetry and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... attention to the Lusitania outrage. Yet (as I understand it) the people will not run the risk of war—or the Administration thinks they will not—and hence the President can do nothing to make his threat good. Therefore we stand in a ridiculous situation; and nobody cares how many notes we write. I don't know that the President could have done differently—unless, before he sent the Lusitania notes, he had called Congress together and submitted his notes to Congress. But, as the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... more opposition was experienced. Public sentiment can be inferred from an article which appeared in the Quarterly Review for March, 1825. Among other things it said: "What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as horses. We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's richochet rockets as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... completely; and in seeing that he was (at a certain period) a fool, he had come to discern that of which his friends had always been aware. Of course, early interests do not always die out. You remember Dr. Chalmers, and the ridiculous exhibition about the wretched little likeness of an early sweetheart, not seen for forty years, and long since in her grave. You remember the singular way in which he signified his remembrance of her, in his famous and honored ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... were still standing on top of the straw stack rocking with laughter at the ridiculous figure cut by Ruth, while their uncle stopped the team and hurried up the bank as fast as he could go. He was the first to get to Ruth as she picked herself up and ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... ghastly head, with mockings and derisive laughter. They had put a paper crown upon the head, which they seemed to think produced a comic effect. The queen, though at first she averted her face, soon turned back again toward the horrid trophy, and laughed, with the rest, at the ridiculous effect produced ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... satisfied with them, besides, just as they came from the end of the tube. Pencroft had asked to be allowed to "blow" in his turn, and it was great fun for him; but he blew so hard that his productions took the most ridiculous shapes, which he ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... to the evident discomfort of the camels, who were quite unhappy when going up or down hill. It was really ridiculous to see these huge, clumsy brutes quite done up, even on the gentlest incline. The track went up and up in zigzag and curves, the cries of the camel-drivers were constantly urging on the perplexed animals, and the dingle of ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... tipsy—on the beauty of temperance? That is dreary work for a pretty young girl. No," Felix continued; "Clifford ought to frequent some agreeable woman, who, without ever mentioning such unsavory subjects, would give him a sense of its being very ridiculous to be fuddled. If he could fall in love with her a little, so much the better. The thing ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... come to nibble at the fish, we might get some food from them," suggested Madden with American delight in the ridiculous. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... paint!' 'No, don't you wish you could?' replied the artist. Now the old lady was perfectly right. You cannot put white quivering tropical heat on a canvas, but Turner dashes unnatural vermilion over his scene and the picture is not ridiculous; the effect of noonday heat is somehow produced. Look at those sunsets! In one sense they are failures, every one of them; but what a splendid audacity the man had, and what a genius, to attempt to portray nature in those special moments when it shines with a glory ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... earthie name to Interrogatories Can tast the free breath of a sacred King? Thou canst not (Cardinall) deuise a name So slight, vnworthy, and ridiculous To charge me to an answere, as the Pope: Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England, Adde thus much more, that no Italian Priest Shall tythe or toll in our dominions: But as we, vnder heauen, are supreame head, So vnder him that great supremacy Where we ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... flowing figures, and swelling stomachs. The outline of these is one that lends itself readily to caricature, and the artists have exaggerated the various details with the intention, it may be, of rendering the representations grotesque. There was nothing ridiculous, however, in the king, their model, and several of his statues attribute to him a languid, almost valetudinarian grace, which is by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... other time, in any other mood, the action would have stirred her sense of the ridiculous. She would have laughed and whipped him with sarcasm. He had done exuberant things before and left her unmoved except to mirth. But this time she raised him up without a word, and he answered her touch with curious unresistance, like a man hypnotized and stood speechless, but with ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... handed over my report, after asking how it happened that the signature of the colonel and adjutant was on the ridiculous report, and the adjutant and the red-headed recruit went out, mounted and rode away. On the way the adjutant said, "I ought to kill you on the spot. But I wont. You have only retaliated on us for playing them pants on you. I hate a man that can't ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... first place, I received my ridiculous name because my father died a short time after I was born. It was intended I should be a boy, so I was named for him. We were poor and mother had to make her own living and mine. She did not feel troubled over this because she had studied dancing and loved it. So she gave dancing lessons in California, ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... Spencer, it will be evident that purposeful games rather than exercises are to be commended. There is indeed no comparison for a moment possible between Nature's method of exercise, which is obtained through play, and the ridiculous and empty parodies of it which men invent. The truth is that Nature is aiming at one thing, and man at another. Man's aim, for reasons already exploded, is the acquirement of strength; Nature's is the acquirement of skill. It is really ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... says Jack. "The fact is, I'm so excited and agitated that I can't sit still anywhere for five minutes together. Ridiculous as it may appear to you, I'm in a perpetual state of nervous flutter. I can't, for the life of me, help fearing that we shall be found out. I fancy that every man who looks twice at me in the street is ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... gods and it was thou who hadst caused them to be created! Through thy grace, the gods pass their time in joy and perfect fearlessness!' Having praised Mahadeva in this manner, the Rishi bowed to him, 'Let not this absence of gravity, ridiculous in the extreme, that I displayed, O god, destroy my ascetic merit! I pray to thee for this!' The god, with a cheerful heart, once more said unto him 'Let thy asceticism increase a thousandfold, O Brahmana, through my grace! ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... won't get away. It's safe in the ground. We'll knock off work and let the claim lie idle till the thing is settled. You can't really expect us to surrender possession of our mine on the mere allegation of some unknown man. That's ridiculous. We won't do it. Why, you'll have to let us argue our case, at least, before you try to put ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... long after Lilly's dresses had descended to her shoe tops and until the ritual came to have a distinctly ridiculous aspect, there took place the one pleasantry in which Lilly and her ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... he goes too far out of his way to avoid evils, and makes an unnecessary sacrifice of pleasure, he is, in reality, not the worse off for that; for all pleasures are chimerical, and to mourn for having lost any of them is a frivolous, and even ridiculous proceeding. ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... said the Dodo, getting in front of him, grasping the reins, and pulling with all his might. "I shall get very angry with you in a minute. It's perfectly ridiculous going on in this way; however do you imagine we are to get to our destination if you ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... for the first time, and did not well understand their business. I agreed with him fully on the latter point. To fire upon a solitary horseman, advancing at a walk, and challenge him afterward, was something that will appear ridiculous in the eyes of all soldiers. The corporal and all his men promised to do better next time, and begged me not to report them at head-quarters. When I reached the center of the town, I found the garrison had been alarmed at the picket firing, ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... everywhere about," said he; "and to see them lighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, minding the people's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing the people's greens, and making themselves generally useful, in every sort of unmilitary way, is most ridiculous! Never saw such a set of fellows,—never did in ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... my sisters and brothers, as are nice to me; and won't even draw any distinction between those born of primary wives and those of secondary ones. Properly speaking, I shouldn't say these things about her, but she's narrow-minded to a degree, and unlike what she should be. There's besides another ridiculous thing. This took place the last time I gave you the money to get me those trifles. Well, two days after that, she saw me, and she began again to represent that she had no money and that she was hard up. Nevertheless, I did not worry my brain with her goings on. But as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... gentleman had been a conspirator with Lord Cochrane, when he heard that Lord Cochrane was gone to Snow-hill, he would have gone on to Snow-hill, then they would have been near the purlieus of that place where all this infamy is daily transacting; instead of that Lord Cochrane comes back. It is too ridiculous and absurd, says my learned friend, to suppose that Lord Cochrane should be coming back to see an officer. I hope, gentlemen, that will not appear to you to be absurd under the circumstances he has sworn to. I can hardly ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... sovereigns. Old and young hastened to present themselves on the day of general reception; little black bonnets with great wings, shaking heads, low curtsies, keeping time with the motions of the head, made, it must be admitted, a few venerable dowagers appear somewhat ridiculous; but the Queen, who possessed a great deal of dignity, and a high respect for decorum, was not guilty of the grave fault of losing the state she was bound to preserve. An indiscreet piece of drollery of one of the ladies of the palace, however, procured her the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre |
