"Sharp-witted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their age, masters of dialectic methods then in vogue, whereby disputation had been raised to the dignity of a science. Then a scholar was looked upon as a mere pretender who could not maintain a thesis against all comers before a crowded audience of sharp-witted critics and eager partisans, not too nice in their expressions of dissent or approval. The exercises still kept up for the Doctor's degree in Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge are but the shadow of what was a reality in the past. Whether we have not lost much in the discontinuance ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... took a long draft himself, steadfastly regarding his companion while he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learned tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... fame is that which comes after a man's death. But let us return to our story. When Roger Williams was banished, he appears to have given the chair to Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. At all events, it was in her possession in 1687. She was a very sharp-witted and well-instructed lady, and was so conscious of her own wisdom and abilities that she thought it a pity that the world should not have the benefit of them. She therefore used to hold lectures in Boston once or twice ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 1823 to June 1824, and was followed by another outbreak in November of the latter year, when the victors quarrelled over the spoils, and the Primates were worsted in turn by the islanders and the Armatoli. The nonentity Kondouriottis of Hydhra finally emerged as President of Greece, with the sharp-witted Kolettis as his principal wire-puller, but the disturbances did not cease till the last instalment of the loan had been received and squandered and there was no ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... understand. They are political offenders disguised as Greeks, who do not wish their movements to be known;" said the sharp-witted boatman, jumping at a conclusion. "I'll undertake to serve you and them—not forgetting myself—and, I trust, that they will make it worth ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... crimson to the ears, while Berenger replied, with greater coolness than he had given himself credit for, that the youth had been nearly drowned on the Sable d'Olonne, and had been left at Dom Colombeau's to recover. The sharp-witted King looked for a moment rather as Sir Hugh the Heron did when Marmion accounted for his page's absence, but was far too courteous and too INSOUCIANT to press the matter further, though Berenger saw quite enough of is expression to feel that he had been delivered ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the town looked at each other aghast, believing the enemies outside had neglected or perhaps betrayed them. General doubt and misunderstanding reigned in both camps. While they were debating what plan they must now adopt, the sharp-witted watchman had time to communicate with the magistrate and with the governor of the town. The alarm was raised, the citizens warned, and the treacherous plan completely wrecked. The enemy at last, tired of the ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... person in the whole world whom our "unappreciated" prosecutor genuinely liked. On their way to Mokroe they had time to come to an understanding about the present case. And now as they sat at the table, the sharp-witted junior caught and interpreted every indication on his senior colleague's face—half a word, a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... delicacy of lace. Here was a cluster of flowers of delicious purity, there a fat nosegay, whatever one might dream of for the hand of a marchioness or a fish-wife; all the charming quaint fancies, in short, which the brain of a sharp-witted child of twelve, budding ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the Grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... him at the Stanhopes', but as a rule, Mr. Slope's visits there were made in the morning and hers in the evening. On that one occasion Charlotte had managed to preserve her from any annoyance. This was very good-natured on the part of Charlotte, as Eleanor thought, and also very sharp-witted, as Eleanor had told her friend nothing of her reasons for wishing to avoid that gentleman. The fact, however, was that Charlotte had learnt from her sister that Mr. Slope would probably put himself forward as a suitor for the widow's ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... THE sharp-witted Athenian saw clearly how matters lay in this sad story; nor did it escape him that malice had had a hand in the affair. How could Bartja's dagger have come into the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... This worthy was an attorney from London, who had officiated as clerk of the court at the assizes at Lancaster, where his quickness had so much pleased Roger Nowell, that he sent for him to Read to manage this particular business. A sharp-witted fellow was Potts, and versed in all the quirks and tricks of a very subtle profession—not over-scrupulous, provided a client would pay well; prepared to resort to any expedient to gain his object, and quite conversant ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the real April Fool, after all, sharp-witted and wide awake as he had thought himself. His chagrin and disappointment were great; so great, that it took all the spirit out of him for a long time; and it is not presumed that he will attempt an "April Fool" trick in the present year, of even the ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... disappointing to find that no recollection of Sirens or of Ulysses lingers in the lore of the present dwellers upon these coasts. They have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than they have of a pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer naively complains, they are not sharp-witted enough to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring foreigner. Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at, when we recall to mind the clean sweep of all classical learning and tradition which that period of time, truly ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... like, and still the race will be so easy for me that I will not even need to try. Your many legs and your stupid head do not go very well together. Now, if I had my sense and all of your legs, no creature in the forest could outrun me. As it is, there are none that can outwit me. I am known as the sharp-witted. Even man says, 'Qui-kwat-wui-lai' (sly as a fox). So do what you ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... for Raphael, so loyal hitherto to the traditions of Umbrian art, to its heavy weight of hieratic tradition, dealing still somewhat conventionally with a limited, non-natural matter—for Raphael to come from Siena, Perugia, Urbino, to sharp-witted, practical, masterful Florence was in immediate effect a transition from reverie to [50] realities—to a world of facts. Those masters of the ideal were for him, in the first instance, masters also of realism, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Lady St. Maur might turn and rend him if stress were laid only on her efforts to thwart his son's unexpected leaning towards matrimony. During every yard of the journey from Chester to London he had tried to extract information from Marigny, and the sharp-witted Frenchman had enjoyed himself hugely in displaying a well-feigned reluctance to yield to the Earl's probing. It was just as much a part of his scheme to make the threatened alliance as objectionable on the one side as on the other. By painting ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... fancy; more real for him than it might be for another man in his place. He is a curious combination, is David: keen and sharp-witted and as cold as an icicle in the planning part; but when it comes to the in-fighting he hasn't sense enough to pound sand, as his ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... patronizingly. "It is like you to understand my question so literally and answer it so simply. Your mind comprehends nothing of intrigue. Strange things might go on around you without your being the wiser; you are not of the class the world calls sharp-witted." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... or para con todos: Affable to all. Agradecido a los beneficios: Grateful for the favours. Agudo de ingenio: Sharp-witted. Ajeno de la verdad: Foreign to truth. Alegre de cascos: Light-headed. Blanco de tez: fair-complexioned. Cargado de espaldas: Round-shouldered. Codicioso, deseoso de dinero: Greedy, wishing for money. Cercano a su fin: ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano |
