"Stupid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would like myself to be than you have); how I have admired you for the independence and unhesitating courage and individuality of your course; and how far I was from desiring that you should cease your support of me in the Weekly. You will think me very stupid—but I did not think of that as the result of my blunt answer to your question. I thought only of the means of convincing people of the real independence of the Weekly's position. You will remember that that was what we discussed. And now that I have unintentionally put you in a false and embarrassing ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... boy's face!" said Plushkin to Chichikov as he pointed to Proshka. "It is stupid enough, yet, lay anything aside, and in a trice he will have stolen it. Well, my lad, what do ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... stupid, characteristic incaution; concealment was never once resorted to; everywhere expressions of the frankest were employed, and every line breathed the full measure of his lordship's treason and betrays the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... will endeavour to manage it better than that big stupid the Emperor of Russia, who went riding full gallop in search of a fall. There is an addle-pate for you. What a simpleton! He is nothing but a Russian corporal, occupied with a boot-heel and a gaiter button. What an idea to arrive in London on the eve of the Polish ball! Do you think I would go ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... in the cold, when Eunice and Edna were together, however, for Edna loved to get Eunice down in some cool, shady corner, or under the rocks on the beach, to chatter or do fancy work together. Cricket thought this was dreadfully stupid, and whenever the other girls settled themselves for what Edna called a "cozy hour," she would slip off by herself, to find the boys, or go off with old Billy, with whom she had struck up such a comical friendship, for he followed her round like a big dog, and permitted all sorts ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... traditional honesty of New England came into Miss Brown's face in an instant; and, although she, Yankee-like, estimated the value of the dust, and sighingly thought how much easier it was to win gold in that way than by forcing ideas into stupid little heads, she firmly declined the gold, and bade ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... says the registrar at the gate, roughly. "The other cannot go through," he says, pointing to de Vaudrey, who tries to look as stupid ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... in the plains," he said. "It is a barbaric and stupid instinct that makes them destroy their own property for the sake of hampering us. As we approach Moscow we shall find that the more civilized inhabitants of the villages, enervated by an easy life, rendered selfish by possession of ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... men and women who were merely square pegs in round holes, and vice versa. Most marriages were unhappy because the contracting parties were not properly mated. Religion was mostly superstition, science for the most part sciolism, popular education merely a means of forcing the stupid and repressing the bright, so that all the youth of the rising generation might conform to the same dull, dead level of democratic mediocrity. Life would soon become so monotonously uniform and so uniformly monotonous as to be scarce ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... made some noise, quiet as they tried to be. For before they reached the car the heavy man scrambled out, stared for a moment in stupid bewilderment, then threw both hands ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... who occupied nearly an hour. As the tumult from without increased, and the brick-bats fell thick and fast (no one, however, being injured) her eloquence kindled, her eye flashed, and her cheeks glowed, as she devoutly thanked the Lord that the stupid repose of that city had at length been disturbed by the force of truth. When she sat down, Esther Moore (a Friend) made a few remarks, then Lucretia Mott, and finally Abby Kelley, a noble young woman ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... for Brighton. Now as this honorable member was prosy and commonplace, not to say stupid, I should not detain my readers with any allusion to his speech, but as illustrating a prominent and very creditable feature of the debates in the House. That time is of some value, and that no remarks can be tolerated, unless they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... "A stupid trick, indeed," agreed Lieutenant Commander Mayhew, but the naval officer did not quite share the shipbuilder's confidence in the submarine boy's innocence. Mr. Mayhew had known of too many cases of naval apprentices ruined through ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... think of me, Peter," she went on. "I suppose you think I never can be serious—no, I won't say serious—conventional. But you're very stupid; we all of us can be, and must be sometimes. You asked me just now what I thought of your friend—well, I'll tell you. He is as different from you as possible. He has his thoughts, no doubt, but he prefers to be very tidy. He takes refuge in the things ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... for place bouquets for—for the girls," I said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him. Why it is that the minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross is more than I can say, but I do. I never possibly know how to answer any remark that he may happen to make unless it is something that makes me lose my temper. His next remark ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wearily. 'It would be stupid of me to refuse, Ask your questions, Mr Trent.' 'It's only this,' said Trent hurriedly. 'We know that your husband lately drew an unusually large sum of ready money from his London bankers, and was keeping it here. It is here now, in fact. Have you ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... Elias, as if of fixed intent to thwart him, stood always in the way, annihilating the unhappy youth with condescension, bidding him cheer up and amuse his Honour. Iskender heard his rattle with a stupid admiration which the Emir's applauding laughter made quite envious. He himself had fallen to the level of a mere serving-lad, to run his Honour's ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... administered by an indiscreet and lazy nurse, unknown by the parent), a low, irritative, febrile state is produced, gradually followed by loss of flesh, the countenance becoming pallid, sallow, and sunken, the eyes red and swollen, and the expression stupid and heavy, and the powers of the constitution at last becoming completely undermined. Such an object is to be seen daily among the poorer classes,—the miniature of a sickly aged ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained—in the law line—nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise. And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was very well married, to a gentleman in a great way, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the history; that was ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... you stupid Caesar, you 'spose I got eyes all round," replied Jupiter, leaping on his legs with the empty sack hanging round his nook, and stooping down his head ready to receive the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... Soul can fling the Dust aside And, smiling, on a Tiger blithely ride, Were't not a Shame—were't not a Shame for him In stupid Niger ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... stupid laws until they are changed, and in the meantime blindly submit to them.—Diderot, Supplement ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... steps onward brought me to a promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we had knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole through which "Trim," the terrier, had shown himself to rouse the stupid curiosity of the water-fowl; there, seen at intervals through the trees, was the winding woodland path along which Mary and I had traced our way to Dermody's cottage on the day when my father's cruel hand had torn us from each other. How wisely my good mother had shrunk ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... Grandma Padgett with her well-known decision. "I suppose he calls every vagabond that comes along a mover, and his own house is too clean for such gentry. I've heard about the Swopes and the Dutch being stupid, but a body has to travel before ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... preceding we spent at the Scala. The opera was stupid, and Madame Bellochi, who is the present primadonna, appeared to me harsh and ungraceful, when compared to Fodor. The new ballet however, amply indemnified us for the disappointment. Our Italian friends ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... prisoners," boomed the announcer, "and know there is nothing more to the rumored anti-social plot than this stupid chatter. Remain vigilant and you have nothing ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... Duchess of Newcastle, Fanshaw, and Shirley himself; that the common notion of a 'new manner' having been introduced from France after the Restoration, or indeed having come in at all, is not founded on fact, the only change being that the plays of Charles the Second's time were somewhat more stupid, and that while five of the seven deadly sins had always had free licence on the stage, blasphemy and profane swearing were now enfranchised to fill up the seven. As for the assertion that the new manner (supposing it to have ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... "Stupid fool! It was I who rang!" cried the count. "Did I not yesterday notify you through the majordomo that I should no longer call you with a whistle, but with ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... no better than I expected. In fact, it was worse. Girlie's second great-aunt stayed too, upon urging, and they all talked on and on. They were trying to teach her a little prayer, and she was so stupid! Over and over and over, and still she could not ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London. My road homeward lay through Oxford Street, and near the "Pantheon" I saw a druggist's shop. The druggist (unconscious minister of celestial pleasures!), as if in sympathy with the rainy Sunday, looked dull and stupid, just as any mortal druggist might be expected to look on a Sunday, and when I asked for the tincture of opium he gave it to me as any other man might do; and furthermore, out of my shilling returned to me what seemed to be a real copper half-penny, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... The place was very nearly dark, but he made out some six souls to be there. He found out that he was come to Lucefrith in West Greenland; the winter sickness was heavy on the place. The woman did not refuse to take one of his men, and did not agree. She seemed stupid with misery. He told her that he should send her a man, and went out. In every house in the Settlement was much the same story. Sickness and death on all hands, but no refusals. At the end of his rounds he had managed to place out all ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... cannot exactly understand what believing in him means. I am very stupid." Eleanor raised her head and looked ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... station-master's office," the latter continued, "and tried to persuade them to let me ride in the guard's van of your special, but he made a stupid fuss about it, so I thought I'd better come to you. Can I beg a seat in your compartment, or anywhere in the train, as far ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seems to me, first, that a fair degree of intellect and imagination is necessary before this kind of disease is possible. It does not seize on merely stupid peasantries, but on those which belong to intellectual races, and in whom the faculties of imagination and the sensibilities of heart were originally strong and tender. In flat land, with fresh air, the peasantry may be almost mindless, but ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... anything? Recollecting Mrs Winn's story, she rather hoped she would. But Anna, her gay spirits quite checked, walked soberly on in perfect silence. It made her uncomfortable to remember that she had never undeceived Aunt Sarah about that fly. What a stupid little mistake it had been! Nothing wrong in what she had done at all, if she had only been quite open about it. What would Delia think of it, she wondered. She glanced sideways at her. What a very firm, decided mouth and chin she had: she looked as though she were never afraid of anything, and ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... the same time, there is nothing I would not do to relieve an afflicted person: and I believe as a matter of fact that one ought to go so far as to express compassion for the misfortunes of such a man, since the unhappy are so stupid that compassion does them more good than anything else in the world. But I also hold that one should confine one's self to professions of pity and be very careful not to feel any. Pity is a passion ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... Miss —— a nice person, "Don't say nice, child, 'tis a bad word." Once I said to Dr. Johnson, "Sir, that is a very nice person." "A nice person," he replied; "what does that mean? Elegant is now the fashionable term, but it will go out, and I see this stupid nice is to succeed to it. What does nice mean? Look in my Dictionary; you will see it ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... disagreeable truths, but you will not correct them. It is impossible to paint in stronger colors the horrors of human society, from which our ignorance and weakness promise themselves so many consolations. No one ever spent so much wit in trying to make us stupid; when we read your book we feel like going on all fours. Nevertheless, as it is more than sixty years since I lost the habit, I am conscious that it is impossible for me to take it up again, and I leave ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... him. "Neglecting me? Dear stupid! D'you suppose I'd sit down under it if you did? Now I'm going to change for dinner; and do please make yourself agreeable to Mrs ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... are usually beyond speech. They fall asleep at the table, on the stairs; they are carried to bed and there laid down as they are, unwashed, undressed; and the inanimate bundles of rags so lie until the mill summons them with its imperious cry before sunrise, while they are still in stupid sleep: ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... you mean," she said gaily. "Now don't be stupid yourself, so please change the subject. Do you know," she continued without giving me time to speak, "that the only way I can be reconciled to this place and the sights we have seen is to imagine I am in Canton or Peking, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... itself plainly, the Mazzinists noisily. Europe must be very stupid, not to understand the one; very deaf, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... fellow," exclaimed Fritz, in honest admiration of the proposal. "I declare I never thought of such a simple thing as that. Of course it can be done. What a stupid I was, not to think of it! That old goat must have knocked all my seven senses out of my head; for, I declare I never recollected that there was any other way of getting down from here save ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... visitor and present. Know, O dull and stupid! that it is a most beautiful young tiger, for our approaching games in the amphitheatre. Hear you that, Medon? Oh, what pleasure! I declare I shall not sleep a wink till I see it; they say it has ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... pleasantly, having no need, as a mere passer-by, to do otherwise, but if I had been obliged to have dealings with them, I should have begun by distrusting them outright. The man was of the common sort of ale-house keeper, ugly, beery, and stupid, and old enough to be the father of his wife, as I call her on account of the wedding ring on her finger. She was, for the place and post, a complete surprise, being a jaunty, townish, garish woman, dressed in decayed finery. He would have slit my throat ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... of matter,—not content, with Condillac, to get rid of spirit or mind,—proceeds to a miracle greater than any his Maker has yet vouchsafed to reveal. He, being then alive and in the act of writing, gets rid of himself altogether. Nay, he confesses he cannot reason with any one who is stupid enough to think he has a self. His words are: 'What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions or objects united together by certain relations, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with perfect simplicity and identity. If any one, upon serious and ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and the poetess also, what wonderful thing to say about anything so lovely, all in measured lines rhyming to perfection. She sighed once or twice when her head was on the pillow. It seemed amazing to her to be gifted as Jerry and his poetess were, and very stupid to be ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charged in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet, 'tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Liberty to think and do and move as one wished. The real realm of freedom was found in experience to be much narrower than this in one direction and much broader in another. In matters of Truth and Faith and Beauty, the Ancient Law was inexcusably strait and modern law unforgivably stupid. It is here that the future and mighty fight for Freedom must and will be made. Here in the heavens and on the mountaintops, the air of Freedom is wide, almost limitless, for here, in the highest stretches, individual freedom harms no man, and, therefore, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... into old age, without our knowing where we are going, she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we stagger along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose brains out of their stupid trances. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... speared too, and jumped and bucked about and got into the swamps. I now told Mr. Kennedy to sit down while I looked after the saddle bags, which I did, and when I came back again I saw blacks along with Mr. Kennedy. I then asked him if he saw the blacks with him. He was stupid with the spear wounds, and said, 'No.' I then asked him where was his watch? I saw the blacks taking away watch and hat as I was returning to Mr. Kennedy. Then I carried Mr. Kennedy into the scrub. He said 'Don't carry me a good way.' Then Mr. Kennedy looked this way, very ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... not stupid, Madame. I will proceed. Both of you, I assume, know something of the radio? Very good! You know that an etheric wave transmits the message, and that it is received and amplified so that it is within the range of the human ear. These waves were there when paleolithic man hunted ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... renowned, of the ancient Greeks and Romans, desiring especially to know whether they possessed any secrets which had been lost. His conclusion was, that the dishes served upon the tables of Lucullus, Augustus Caesar, and others, were "utterly bad and atrociously stupid." But he commended the decoration of their tables, the cups and vases of gold, the beautiful pitchers, the chased silver, the candles of white Spanish wax, the fabrics of silk whiter than the snow, and the beautiful flowers ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... a human being than a dwarf, Rug," he said. "But at least it is to the honour of our race that the most wicked dwarf is also the most stupid." ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... what secures the civil life, But pawns of children, and a wife? 810 That lie like hostages at stake, To pay for all men undertake; To whom it is as necessary As to be born and breathe, to marry; So universal all mankind, 815 In nothing else, is of one mind. For in what stupid age, or nation, Was marriage ever out of fashion? Unless among the Amazons, Or cloister'd friars, and vestal nuns; 820 Or Stoicks, who to bar the freaks And loose excesses of the sex, Prepost'rously wou'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... n't been "stupid," as Fan said, she would have had her wits about her, and let it pass; but, you see, Polly was an honest little soul and it never occurred to her that there was any need of concealment, so she answered in her straightforward way, "Oh, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but their minds are stored with antidotes, wisdom's simples, plain considerations overlooked by youth. They have matter to communicate, be they never so stupid. Their talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; classic in virtue of the speaker's detachment, studded, like a book of travel, with things we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I have said, of the speaker's detachment,—and this is why, of two ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... what you told me yesterday, I feel I never wish to see you again. This is not anger; but it's incurable. I can't account for it, but it is there. How you could have been so stupid as to think I could remain with both you and Romer in the house with this knowledge between us, I simply can't understand. How could I help contrasting his generosity with your self-interested selfishness? I am not angry any more about Miss ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... a trackless forest inhabited by fierce, wild beasts; nor an enchanted wood with lords and ladies imprisoned in the trees; it was only an orchard—a commonplace old orchard—nothing more. Indians and robbers were stupid creatures of no importance whatever. There were no fairies, no giants, no soldiers left in the boyhood world. The rail fence war horse refused to charge. The apple tree ship was a wreck on the rocks of discontent. The ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... what she had to do was so simple that she would indeed have been stupid if she had been unable to do it. She gave all her attention to the task, but every now and again old Ninepins called ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... that scarcely ever leave us. I don't know whether they expect me to produce my spoils from my pocket and lay them upon the table, or whether one of them is a student of the lip language and hopes to learn the secrets of our conversation. Bah! They are very stupid, this professional potpourri of secret-service agents and detectives. Can't you hear them, how they will whisper in the lobby after we have left? 'Jocelyn Thew is entertaining a young Flying Corps man on leave from the front, the brother of Miss Beverley, who has already helped ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the opposite side on his intended landing-place just as his black form reared from the deep water and gained the shallows, into which I had waded knee-deep to meet him. I now experienced that pleasure as he stood sullenly eyeing me within fifteen paces. Poor stupid fellow! I would willingly, in my ignorance, have betted ten to one upon the shot, so certain was I of ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... "It is Mademoiselle de Retz, then." No, nor she either; you are extremely provincial. "Lord bless me," say you, "what stupid wretches we are! it is Mademoiselle de Colbert all the while." Nay, now you are still further from the mark. "Why, then, it must certainly be Mademoiselle de Crequy." You have it not yet. Well, I find I must tell ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... upon an uprising. The speech of Doolittle was variously received; many of the members were much interested; others who were in the higher degrees of the order were vexed beyond measure that Doolittle should be so stupid as to proclaim, in this public manner, a matter which really belonged to higher degrees of the organization to decide. One of the number, James Geary, a second-hand clothes dealer and broker on Wells street, who will receive further mention by ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... had promised survival and security on their own land: for they said to the Exiles, Get ye far from the Lord, for unto us is this land given in possession.(475) Through the early uneventful years of Sedekiah, this stupid and self-righteous party found time to gather strength, and in his fourth year must have been stirred towards action by the arrival in Jerusalem of messengers from the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, all of them states within the scope of Egyptian intrigues against Babylon.(476) For ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... 107 deg. F. The pulse beats from 80 to 100 a minute. Feeding and rumination are suspended. Chills and muscular tremors may appear and the skin show uneven temperature. The ears and base of the horns are cold, the coat staring. The animals are dull and stupid and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... still increased. People's faces grew red with congestion in the growing heat. Each had the stupidly gaping mouth of the ignoramus who judges painting, and between them they indulged in all the asinine ideas, all the preposterous reflections, all the stupid spiteful jeers that the sight of an original work can possibly elicit from ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... no lack of wit; but to-day I was unfortunately its butt. And what was my fault?—only my stupid modesty. The conversation was carried on in the Danish language; some members of our party spoke French and others German, but I purposely abstained from availing myself of their acquirements, in order not to ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... this was not very important. He must be careful, but do nothing to suggest that he understood the risk he ran. If his antagonists thought him stupid, so much the better. He saw the difficulty of playing what Jake called a lone hand against men skilled in the intricate game; but he could not ask for help until he was sure of his ground. Besides, he must find a ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... of the Middle Ages was practicable, just because the rational treatment of all subjects by the humanists had trained the historical spirit. In the fifteenth century this spirit had so far penetrated the history even of the individual cities of Italy that the stupid fairy tales about the origin of Florence, Venice, and Milan vanished, while at the same time, and long after, the chronicles of the North were stuffed with this fantastic rubbish, destitute for the most part of all poetical value, and invented as ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... it. There is nothing to interest or amuse them; no sport; no castles or factories to visit; no adventurous expeditions; no gay music in the morn, and no light dance in the evening. There is always danger of the day becoming a course of heavy meals and stupid walks, for the external scene and all teeming circumstances, natural and human, though full of concern to you, are to ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... have pop-corn to-night all so fast!" he says, doggedly, in the midst of a momentary lull that has fallen on a game of whist. And then the oldest Mills girl, who thinks cards stupid anyhow, says: "That's so, Billy; and we're going to have it, too; and right away, for this game's just ending, and I shan't submit to being bored with another. I say 'pop-corn' with Billy! And after that," she continues, rising and addressing the party ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... turned with relief to the thought of Pinkerton waiting for me, as I knew, with unwearied affection, and regarding me with a respect that I had never deserved, and might therefore fairly hope that I should never forfeit. The inequality of our relation struck me rudely. I must have been stupid, indeed, if I could have considered the history of that friendship without shame—I who had given so little, who had accepted and profited by so much. I had the whole day before me in London, and I determined, at least in words, to set the balance somewhat straighter. Seated in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... speak to her, for all the rest had moved away a little, and left them standing together; and when he did so, his voice faltered, and his manner was so much agitated, that she must have been blind, indeed, and stupid, not ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... witnesses of this scene listened with stupid surprise to this address. The women busied themselves in binding up the deep gash in Constantia's forehead; the men, in raising Monthault, and lifting up the carriage. By this time the out-riders were come up, who, faithful ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the abnormally foolish is not the abnormally clever, which is obviously a matter in dispute. That which can condemn the abnormally foolish is the normally foolish. It is when he begins to say and do things that even stupid people do not say or do, that we have a right to treat him as the exception and not the rule. It is only because we none of us profess to be anything more than man that we have authority to treat him as ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... thing!" exclaimed Geraldine, kissing her, "no wonder you attract the really interesting men and leave me the dreadful fledglings! It's bad of you; and I don't see why I'm stupid enough to have such an attractive woman for my closest"—a kiss—"dearest friend! Even Duane is villain enough to tell me that he finds you overwhelmingly attractive. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... university graduates, and the like, would be unceremoniously set down by divine wisdom as fools; and surely if account is taken of the whole compass and duration of our being, and of all our relations to things and persons seen and unseen, nothing can be more stupid than godlessness, however cultured. The word literally means coarse or thick, and may suggest the idea of stolid insensibility as the last stage in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you were stupid enough to say to your wife, "To-morrow, my dear" (sometimes she knows it two days beforehand), "I have got to get up early." Unfortunate Adolphe, you have especially proved the importance of this appointment: "It's to—and to—and ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... but he confessed that it grew easier as he saw more of Miss Casey. He attributed his reform to her entirely. She had made the semi-political, semi-social organizations to which he belonged appear stupid, and especially so when he lost his money playing poker in the club-room (for the club had only one room), when he might have put it away for her. He liked to talk with her about the neighbors in the tenement, and his chance of political advancement to the position of a ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... our dome at Washington; but externally I think ours is the more graceful, though the effect inside is tame and flat in comparison. This is owing partly to its lesser size and height, and partly to our hard, transparent atmosphere, which lends no charm or illusion, but mainly to the stupid, unimaginative plan of it. Our dome shuts down like an inverted iron pot; there is no vista, no outlook, no relation, and hence no proportion. You open a door and are in a circular pen, and can look ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... in the gospel chain, I pity the inhabitants of the earth when he gets loose again. After reading the description of the millennial reign, as it shall be, as described by the Prophet Isaiah, can anyone be so stupid as to believe that we are now living in that holy day? Shame on him who would deceive and tamper with the souls of men! The gentleman who told ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... insults, and affronts on you, or something to that effect? He has done the same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or so stupid, as not to know that he and the other will treat your application with contempt, and light their cigars ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... days when religion is nothing more than a useful means to some, and a poesy to others. Devotion causes a moral ophthalmia. By some providential grace, it takes from souls on the road to eternity the sight of many little earthly things. In a word, pious persons, devotes, are stupid on various points. This stupidity proves with what force they turn their minds to celestial matters; although the Voltairean Chevalier de Valois declared that it was difficult to decide whether stupid people became naturally pious, or whether piety had the effect of making intelligent ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... you that neither they nor I were visibly disturbed. The fact is, when a fellow is sure to be put to death, he is either dramatic—as this madman was—or quietly undemonstrative. Martyr! Nonsense! It was simply stupid. I don't want to talk about it. Those mischief-makers in Congress will howl over it." They did, and secession ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... provoked mercy will no longer strive, but never too late for men to repent in this world." I told Atkins every word the priest had said, who then parted from us to walk with his wife, while we discoursed with the rest. But these were very stupid in religious matters; yet all of them promised to do their endeavours to make their wives turn Christians; and upon which promises the priest married the three couple. But as Atkins was the only sincere convert ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... prompts to these delightful acts, and that the great God of nature gifted us with the powers necessary for their performance. But, as the world has chosen to brand them with its censure, men of prudence, like myself, whilst apparently conforming outwardly to such stupid prejudices, know how in secret to fully enjoy them. I am blessed in your darling aunt with a wife who fully understands and humours my desires. She is rarely splendid in the glorious beauties of her body, and in temperament ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... boat was pulled up, and presently they saw two men coming from the sands and into the light of their fire,—ragged, dirty; one shabby old garment—a pair of tow pantaloons—on each; bareheaded, barefooted,—great, clumsy feet, stupid and heavy-looking heads; slouching walk, stooping shoulders; something eager yet deprecating ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... denied this, but was taken to the princes, who flogged him and flung him into a vault in the house of Jonathan, the Secretary. After many days he was sent for by the king who asked, Is there Word from the Lord? There is, he replied, and, as if drumming a lesson into a stupid child's head, repeated his message, Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the King of Babylon. He asked what he had done to be treated as he had been, and, by contrast, where were the prophets who had said that the Babylonians would not come to Judah—his ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... cross of English and Yankee, and therefore first cousins to us both. "Perhaps," said he, "that 'ere Eagle might with more propriety have been taken off as perched on an anchor, instead of holding it in his claws, and I think it would have been more nateral; but I suppose it was some stupid foreign artist that made that 'ere blunder, I never seed one yet that was equal to our'n. If that Eagle is represented as trying what he can't do, it's an honourable ambition arter all, but these Bluenoses won't try what they can do. They put me in mind of a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... on,' answers the ghost. 'I was alive when it struck eight bells in the middle watch, and its now only just gone two. I take it it is the morning watch, for I heard it strike just before that stupid sentry put out his light, and for some reason or other I couldn't make out, took to ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Cetinje. We visited the director that Easter Monday morning, and were received unofficially in his quarters. We always had great fun with that man—a pompous individual filled to overflowing with the importance of his position, and, not unlike men similarly afflicted, most aggressively stupid. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... surpass the stars; Your mouth is like the bow of Cupid; Your rose-ting'd cheeks no wrinkle mars— Yet why are you so sweetly stupid? ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... stupid! and Lord Uxmoor and Harrington had seen it. Gentlemen read advertisements. That is one ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... visible consort, though far to the north and the south its brethren and sisters dominated their realms. Of all the peaks from California to {p.103} Frazer's River, this one before me was royalest. Mount Regnier[5] Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody. More melodiously the Siwashes call it Tacoma,—a generic term also applied to all snow peaks. Tacoma, under its ermine, is a crushed volcanic dome, or an ancient volcano fallen in, and ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... to speak: but he stamped with his foot, and said, Begone! I tell you: I cannot bear this stupid romantic folly. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... seemed very stupid to—the gentleman who took me in," remarked Fan. "Can you tell me something about him, Mrs. Travers? Is he a friend of yours ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... me is, how are we to get it sent to such an out-o'-the-way place—Traitor's Trap! It's a bad name, and the stupid fellow makes no mention of any known town near to it, though he gives the post-office. If I only knew its exact whereabouts I might get some one to take the money to him, for I have agents in many parts ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... there is no evidence against her. You just find two or three of my stupid things in her room, but that is nothing. French maids always take things like that—one expects it. But I am not angry. You think what is quite—quite silly, but you do something which is quite right." And then, turning to the professor, she ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... you stupid creatures!" cried Joe, applying the lash with some violence. But the horses regarded him no more than blocks would have done. Immediately in front he perceived a dark object that resembled a stump and turning the horses slightly to one side, endeavoured to urge them past it. Still they would not ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... to say this—that I am very sorry indeed now that I was so tiresome and stupid. I think I did really believe your arguments all along. But I did not want to believe them. Do you see now why ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... raved enormous folly, Of Baptisms, Sunday-schools, and Graves, 615 'Twould make George Colman melancholy To have heard him, like a male Molly, Chanting those stupid staves. ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... utmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, on all sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, and stained garments: having trudged in from the country. The faces of the greater part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; their dogged, stupid, monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour, having something in it, half miserable, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... hopes and my ambitions; but you mighty soon got sick of that—you yawned, you were sleepy, and you wanted to go about; you thought it was silly staying cooped up like that, and seeing no one, going nowhere! It was stupid for you, you were bored to death, you wanted noise and excitement, to spend money, to see and be seen,—as if that game was worth the candle in a God-forsaken hole of a place like Mount Hope! You killed my ambition then and there; I saw it was no use. You wanted the results, but you wouldn't pay ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... morning), "and his bald head and de boys who call um names, and de bars eat em up, and serve um right," says Gumbo. But as for my lady, when discoursing with her cousin about the old porter, "Pooh, pooh! Stupid old man!" says she; "past his work, he and his dirty old dogs! They are as old and ugly as those old fish in the pond!" (Here she pointed to two old monsters of carp that had been in a pond in Castlewood gardens for centuries, according ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unceasingly. 'I have been recommended for the St. Anna Cross for the expedition. Now I shall stay here a bit until we start on the campaign. It's capital here. What women! Well, and how are you getting on? I was told by our captain, Startsev you know, a kind-hearted stupid creature.... Well, he said you were living like an awful savage, seeing no one! I quite understand you don't want to be mixed up with the set of officers we have here. I am so glad now you and I will be able to see something of one another. I have put up at the Cossack corporal's ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... remember the rest, but it is quite long. But he wants to make a song about Salo now, because he is so awfully nice. He said it as soon as Salo went away today. We all like him, and Bruno said that if he made a stupid song he would tear ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... hotly. "He's like a pillar of sanity and law in this house of shams and swollen vanities, where people stalk about with a sort of madhouse dignity, each one fancying himself a king or a pope. If you could have heard that woman talk of him! Why, she thinks him stupid, bigoted, blinded by middleclass prejudices. She talked about his having no aesthetic sense and insisted that her artists had always shown him tolerance. I don't know why it should get on my nerves so, I'm sure, but her stupidity and assurance are enough ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... every "superstition," every anodyne and nepenthe offered to the inmates of this House of the Incurable. Such "sprinkling with holy water," such "rendering ourselves stupid," is the only alternative. Anything else is the insight of the hero, or the ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... kindness to take advantage of the etiquette which dispenses with introductions at morning calls. Many a witty, talented person has had a stupid bore pursue him upon such an introduction, and even the one necessary conversation following an introduction is a painful effort, owing to the entire uncongeniality ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... tackle and marbles and kites Were waiting them there in this Land of Delights. They dwelt on the Island of Endless Play For five long years; then one sad day A strange, dark ship sailed up to the strand, And 'Ho! for the voyage to Stupid Land,' The captain cried, with a terrible noise, As he seized the frightened and struggling boys And threw them into the dark ship's hold; And off and away sailed the captain bold. They vainly begged him to let them out, He answered ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... surely far more than a match, in this respect, for the simple- looking lad who stood there staring at him so solemnly. Yes, diplomacy was undoubtedly the way out of this unfortunate scrape; the Englishman must be made to realise that the capture of Nombre was a stupid mistake, out of which neither honour nor profit was to be gained; and once convinced of this, he would perhaps withdraw himself and his forces peaceably. These thoughts flashed through Don Sebastian's brain while George was still speaking; and by the time that the latter had finished, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... two hundred Arabs were overthrown. The shock was stunning to both sides, and for perhaps ten wonderful seconds no man heeded his enemy. Terrified horses wedged in the crowd, bruised and shaken men, sprawling in heaps, struggled, dazed and stupid, to their feet, panted, and looked about them. Several fallen Lancers had even time to re-mount. Meanwhile the impetus of the cavalry carried them on. As a rider tears through a bullfinch, the officers forced their way through ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... prisoner, fearing that his presence might incommode his host, asked to be removed to another tent, a captain and fifty men were ordered to guard him. In the morning an Indian, alone and apparently unarmed, loitered about the entrance, and the stupid sentinel let him pass in. He immediately drew a sword from under a sort of cloak which he wore, and tried to stab Dieskau; but was prevented by the Colonel to whom the tent belonged, who seized upon him, took away his sword, and pushed him out. As soon as his wounds would permit, Dieskau was carried ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Betty was still very backward sometimes in the matter of r's—"Cywil's got to be my chum—don't be such a stupid Nancy—er—Polly. He's got to try to murder me in the middle of the night to get the pearl. Look here, we've only just put you in to amuse you a bit, we can just as well do ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... home and friends, your Honorable Strawness, but they were so quiet and happy and comfortable that I found them dismally stupid. Nothing in that corner of Oz interested me, but I believed that in other parts of the country I would find strange people and see new sights, and so I set out upon my wandering journey. I have been a wanderer for nearly a full year, ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... over plains green as an emerald with the young verdure of April, till at length they saw, far as the eye could reach, the boundless prairie alive with herds of buffalo. The animals were in one of their tame, or stupid moods; and they killed nine or ten of them without the least difficulty, drying the best parts of the meat. They crossed the Colorado on a raft, and reached the banks of another river, where one of the party named Hiens, a German of Wuertemberg, and ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman |
