"The ways of the world" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, although I enjoy as good an opinion of myself as most men, that I was much less successful in making my way at court than I had expected. My competitors for advancement were numerous, and more versed in the ways of the world than I. Like them, I was obliged to begin by paying a most assiduous attention to men in office. Having once gained the privilege of being seated in the mejlis (assembly) of the head of the law, who was in fact my chief, I little by little became noticed ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... was so plausible, that he found it an easy task to deceive a girl as unsophisticated as Elinor Wildegrave, who was a perfect novice in the ways of the world. She could not believe it possible that Mr. Hurdlestone could stoop from his dignity to act a despicable part; that deception could lurk beneath such a grave demeanor. Elinor was not the first human being whose faith has been ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up; and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humour, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt that if Addison had written a novel on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered, not only as the greatest of the English ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in an airy humour—a man I thought without guile or care, passing away from England to happy connubial times along the enchanting shores which the Mediterranean bathes. We fell, as fellow-travellers generally do, upon old stories of the ways of the world we had seen. He had taken wider ranges than my duties had ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... finds the infant "Moon", and the third year he has four fishes one day and finds the baby-girl, "Star." When the children have grown up the monk sends them to town in order that they should learn the ways of the world. The eldest hearing a Jew offering a box for sale, saying, "Whoever buys this box will be sorry for it, and he who does not buy it will be equally sorry," purchases it and on taking it home finds his sister weeping for the golden apple which the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... so inexperienced in all the ways of the world, so ignorant of the ways of the law! Oh, does she know—does she even dream of the awful position, the deadly danger in which she stands? No; she is unconscious of all peril. She evidently believes that ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... at these sage directions, and thought how completely all persons knowing in the ways of the world gave the same advice. But little did uncle then think that I had acted up to the very letter what he was advising for my future conduct. We re-entered the house on luncheon bell ringing. Mrs. Dale complimented the doctor on the advance her son had made both in manners and instruction, and ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... he was but a youth, unused to the ways of the world, had much natural shrewdness. He had been brought up in the breeziness of the West, where it is not considered good form, to say the least, to ask too many questions of a man. If a person wanted ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... returned home almost cowed. But on the following morning he determined to make a still further effort, so that he might, if possible, return to the ways of the world, which were already becoming strange to him from the desolation of the life which he had been leading. He went out, and, taking the road by the church, up the creek, he came at about a distance of two miles from his own house to Coed, the farmstead of John Griffith, the farmer who ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... forget she was indebted to me, then in a business-like manner placed the rich ornament on her bosom, where it seemed as much out of place "as a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear," and hastily walked off with the prize before I could recover from my astonishment! I was a stranger to the ways of the world, and it did not occur to me, until years afterwards, that this was an IMPROMPTU comedy, ingeniously devised and skilfully performed by two capital actresses, for the purpose of swindling me out ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... as long as they do not impress you. But with those who have made an impression upon your heart, I have noticed that you are timid. This quality might affect a bourgeoise, but you must attack the heart of a woman of the world with other weapons. The Countess knows the ways of the world. Believe me, and leave to the Celadons, such things as sublime talk, beautiful sentiments; let them spin out perfection. I tell you on behalf of women: there is not one of us who does not prefer a little rough handling to too ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... there is a passage from my house leading to the shops, most convenient I assure you," said Frau Holle. "Everything delivered punctually on the premises within one minute of purchasing it. No lifts or motor-cars necessary. You see I know the ways of the world." So saying she opened the back door, and they passed into a lane lighted by many lamp-posts. These lamp-posts gave a very bright light and had queer faces like the man in the moon. They grinned and winked as Green Ears and ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... "Oh, the ways of the world!" he cried. Then in a different tone and not without reverence: "Oh, the ways ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... man went walking the ways of the world, So bowed and so bent that his beard swept his knee. "What makes thee go doubled this fashion?" quoth I. He answered (and spread out his hands unto me), "My youth hath escaped me; 'tis lost in the dust, And I bend me to seek it, where'er it ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... attuned in beautiful accord with all things noble and charming in nature. He is really very intelligent-looking. He makes me think of the little boy that ran through the streets of a large city all of one cold winter, and then became a great artist, but he was so poor and inexperienced in the ways of the world, that he had to suffer a long time before his genius was discovered. Some time I will tell you about him, that you may know that true genius and worth may be found among the lowest children of earth, and, like the diamond, they will shine when ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... what he counted success, he soon began to make plainer advance toward the end on which his self-love and cupidity at least were set. But, knowing in a vague manner how he had carried himself before he went, Arctura, uninfluenced by the ways of the world, her judgment unwarped, her perception undimmed, her instincts nice, her personal delicacy exacting, had never imagined he could approach her on any ground but that of cousinship and a childhood of shared sports. She had seen that Donal was far from pleased with him, and believed ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... such, and he would not have known just how to answer you if you had asked him what was his philosophy of life. He was range-bred—as purely Western as were the cattle he tended—but he was not altogether ignorant of the ways of the world, past or present. He had that smattering of education which country schools and those of "the county seat" may give a boy who loves a horse better than books, and who, sitting hunched behind his geography, dreams of riding ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... nerves or very bad sight, if he persist in saying that there is more danger to be apprehended from the former than the latter. He knows very little of modern manners and must be a very suckling in the ways of the world who imagines that a young man has any thing to fear from the actresses on the stage, who has gone through the ordeal of a common ball-room, or even walked of a fine day through our streets. The ladies of London, Dublin, New-York, Philadelphia ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... aspect he presents is wholly different. All that is weak in his character is in the background; all that is best and strongest comes to the front. He is in the prime of life. Ignorant he still remains of the ways of the world as found in the settlements; but there is no trace of discontent or fretfulness. He has full room for the exercise of his native virtues, and in the character of the acute and daring scout he finds no superior. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... quod erat demonstrandum. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He did not know,—but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of knowledge,—alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some diaecious plant which has grown in a lone corner, and suddenly unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... of any one unshaken by the ways of the world, exemption from sorrow, freedom from passion, and security: this is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... nudged, her and told her to be quiet. She looked down herself, but nevertheless contrived to use her eyes as a kind of furtive electric battery in the midst of the most innocent conversation. It was clear that Polly had flown farthest in the ways of the world, and when you looked at her again you could see that the balance of her life had ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... over, he knew all the history of her innocent life, and was struck with amazement at the variety and depth of her scholastic acquirements and the extraordinary power of her mind, which, combined with her simplicity and total ignorance of the ways of the world, produced an affect as charming as it was unusual. Needless to say that every hour he knew her he fell more ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... honeysuckle porch. It had been several days since Miss Cummins had gone to the city, and had come back no wiser than she went, save that she had made a somewhat exhaustive study of the slums, and had acquired a more intimate knowledge of the ways of the world than she had ever possessed before. She had found Minerva Court, and designated it on her return as a "sink of iniquity," to which Afric's sunny fountains, India's coral strand, and other tropical localities frequented by ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with Mrs. Dodd. They had all been down to breakfast but Lady Wakely and another woman, who were accustomed to the ways of the world. ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... more experienced in the ways of the world, I would have known that such passion as this evinced was short-lived; that there is no witchery in a smile lasting enough to make men like him forget the lack of those social graces to which they are accustomed. But I was mad with happiness, and was unconscious ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... it was whispered, the Duke Wilhelm Ludwig, father of the reigning Duke of Wirtemberg, had initiated her into the ways of the world in general and of courts in particular; in gratitude wherefore she was reputed to have performed the same office, twenty years later, for his son Eberhard Ludwig. The Duke of Zollern, several Hohenlohes, and many Gemmingens had been her slaves; not to mention other less ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... house-keeper's larder; so that, whatever he did, he was always busy in the line of professional duty—killing or curing. On his hunting excursions, Doctor Falcon carried with him his youngest brother, who, being a foolish young fellow, and inexperienced in the ways of the world, it was not thought ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... also the regions of bliss (hereafter). The virtuous man when solicited for assistance by good men bestow alms on them by straining to the utmost, even to the deprivation of the comforts of his wife and servants. Good men having an eye to their own welfare, as also virtue and the ways of the world, act in this way and thereby grow in virtue through endless ages. Good persons possessing the virtues of truthfulness, abstention from doing injury to any one, rectitude, abstention from evil towards any one, want of haughtiness, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... discharging his brother's obligation to them. They were smaller men than my captain, of a slender, graceful build, and the hair of both was quite white, but from my post of observation I could see that they were men of courtly manners, well used to the ways of the world, and talking now quite eagerly with all the wealth of gesture ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... she of her beauty, More than the palm of its peace; And who beyond Christ's portal to mortal Desires would bend her knees? The ways of the World have flowers, And any who will pluck those; But let there ever be a place Where ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... brought up. Upon the education of the boys the Prince of Wales utilized his own knowledge of life as well as the traditions of his father's training of himself. He is said to have believed that the study of men and the ways of the world had not been sufficiently considered in his own case and that he wished his sons, while escaping the nervousness, constraints and adulation which surrounded the Court, should also avoid the sycophancy and flattery which might be expected in their cases at a public school—even of the highest. ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... was the picture in which she wore the Green ruby. Don't you remember it? "Well, you can't imagine how she carried on. She acted like a sav—but I won't say it. She has had no advantages—yet, and she's a bit untrained in the ways of the world. Of course, she hated Agatha's face because it was beautiful. She complained to the old man. The worst of it all is that I had already shown her a picture of the ruby, taken from that eastern magazine, and she ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... unconsciously think when, in his humiliating discomfiture, we hear him declare that "wit may be made a Jack-a-lent when 'tis upon ill employment." For the Falstaff of the histories is a man of intellect, wisdom, and humour, thoroughly experienced in the ways of the world, fascinating in his drollery, human, companionable, infinitely amusing, and capable of turning all life to the favour of enjoyment and laughter—a man who is passionate in the sentiment of comradeship, and who, with all his faults (and perhaps because of some of them, for faultless ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... not exactly the type of person he had anticipated encountering in a murder investigation. From the tip of her pert little hat to the toes of her ultra-fashionable shoes she was expressive of the independent rising generation—a generation wiser in the ways of the world than that from which it was sprung—a generation strangely bereft of genuine youth, yet charming in an entirely modern and ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... more concerning the hereafter, he was far better informed in the ways of the world, for his life had been paved with opportunities, and he had made use of them. However, without a standard in his heart such as Edwin had erected and with no home government to protect and guide him, as a petted ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... seas he fought with the Tunisian galleys before he set sail westward for El Dorado. And here Andrea Doria beat the Turks and blockaded his own city and set her free; and S. Catherine Adorni, weary of the ways of the world, watched the galleons come out of the west, and prayed to God, and saw the wind over the sea. O beautiful and mysterious armies, O little children from afar, and thou whose adventurous name married our world, what cities have you taken, ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... Washington into the retirement of domestic life, we think it proper to notice the events which closed the great struggle between England and France for empire in America. In that struggle he had first become practised in arms, and schooled in the ways of the world; and its results will be found connected with the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... cipher with my old friends. A few weeks ago, these Wilton's courted my acquaintance, and the young men vied with each other, in paying me attention. To-night, we met as perfect strangers. To me, the change is unaccountable. I am, however, a perfect novice in the ways of the world. Such examples of selfish meanness often repeated will render ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... the ways of the world," she interjected, "to know my own mind. I love you, Guy, and unless I've mistaken your attitude, you love me. When our minds meet in such a matter, why should anything be permitted to intervene?" Her hand still lay in his; her ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... working girl, ignorant of the ways of the world, and can only express what I feel, Louis," rejoined Mariette, unable to resist his pleadings. "The reasons you plead for an early marriage seem good to me. I may be wrong, or I may, perhaps, be influenced by my longing to be yours; but ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... sympathetic chord in Saracinesca's nature. San Giacinto had risen to his feet, and there was something in the huge, lean strength of him, in the bold look of his eyes, in the ring of his deep voice, that inspired respect. Rough he was, and not over refined or carefully trained in the ways of the world, cruel perhaps, and overbearing too; but he was every inch a Saracinesca, and the old man ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... stroke altogether unexpected by Charlotte: she knew so little of the ways of the world that she had never bestowed a thought on the payment for the rent of the house; she knew indeed that she owed a good deal, but this was never reckoned among the others: she was thunder-struck; she hardly knew what answer to make, yet it was absolutely ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson |
