"Impudent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shall hear presently that it is out of Christian charity that he covets my money! But I will put a stop to all this, and justice, impudent rascal, will ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... his lady-mother could hold out no longer, and would agree to anything I chose to propose. The servants about her I took care should be in my pay, not hers: especially the child's head nurse was under MY orders, not those of my lady; and a very handsome, red-cheeked, impudent jade she was; and a great fool she made me make of myself. This woman was more mistress of the house than the poor-spirited lady who owned it. She gave the law to the servants; and if I showed any particular attention to any of the ladies who visited ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... horrible man may have committed," she said, in conclusion. "I shall be most grateful to him to my dying day. And I want you, Uncle Hutchinson, no matter how unpleasant it may be to you to do so, to thank him from me for what he did. And, oh! it was so funny to see that detestable little impudent man kicking about that way in the air!" Which remembrance, at the same moment, of both the terrifying and the ludicrous side of her recent experience, not unnaturally sent Grace off ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... But then again calling to mind his ancient courage, he secretly wished that Minerva would but breathe such a spirit into his bosom as she inflamed him with in the hour of Troy's destruction, that he might encounter with three hundred of those impudent suitors at once, and strew the pavements of his beautiful palace with ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... away the foundation of reputation—private character. A faithful transcript throughout, it portrayed him as a bag of slimy gold and gilded slime. He hated his own face staring out at him from a three-column cut in the center of the first page—its heavy jaw, its cynical mouth, its impudent eyes. "Do I look like THAT?" he thought. He was like one who, walking along the streets, catches sight of his own image in a show-window mirror and before he recognizes it, sees himself as others see him. He ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... passed his glass from one to another. He left Venice the next morning, to pursue his inquiries in some less inquisitive place. But the great bulk of the philosophers of the day were far from joining in the general feeling. They raised an outcry against the impudent fictions of Galileo, and one, a professor of Padua, refused repeatedly to look through the telescope, lest he should be compelled to admit that which he had pre-determined ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... to come on these excursions too. He was the only being for whom it was suspected that Tait felt a mild dislike—an impudent Irish terrier, full of fun and mischief, yet with a somewhat unfriendly and suspicious temperament that made him, perhaps, a better guardian for Norah than the benevolently disposed Tait. Puck had a nasty, inquiring mind—an unpleasant way of sniffing round the legs of tramps that generally ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... beloved. And if there be but one man amongst ten thousand millions of men that is accurst, disastrous, and evilly planeted, whom Fortune beats most, whom God hates most, and all Societies esteem least, that man is sure to be a husband.—Such is the peevish Moon that rules your bloods. An Impudent fellow best woes you, a flattering lip best wins you, or in a mirth who talks roughliest is most sweetest; nor can you distinguish truth from forgeries, mists from Simplicity: witness those two deceitful monsters that you have entertaind ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... mischievous smile. "When we was at the Astor House, she locked up my clothes in her room, 'cause New York was such a dreadful wicked place, she was 'fraid they'd be stole; and she never let me out o' her sight, for fear the colored waiters in the hotel would be impudent to me. Last night she sent me away up into the cupola to sleep, 'cause she said I could have more room there. And when I'd got the picaninny asleep, and was watching for a chance to steal away, she come all the way up there very softly, and said she'd brought me some hot drink, 'cause I didn't ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... watch the boy, there he was, looking at him in a very sly manner. Freddy, enraged at this, rushed out for a stone, and, bringing it in, hurled it at the looking-glass. But it was all in vain, for, even after the glass rattled down and strewed the floor with its many pieces, that impudent boy peeped at him from every bit of ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and train. Also, she was short and inordinately stout, while her gross, flabby chin completely concealed her neck. Her face was purple, and the little eyes in it had an impudent, malicious expression. Yet she walked as though she were conferring a favour upon everybody by so doing. As for the Baron, he was tall, wizened, bony-faced after the German fashion, spectacled, and, apparently, about forty-five years of age. Also, he had legs which seemed to begin ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in her cheeks and eyes she was extraordinarily lovely. Kenny with difficulty kept his feet firmly upon the floor a yard away from her. Peggy laughed up at him, her piquant face impudent and understanding. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... with generously swelling curves, "her form," says Eduard Fuchs, "was provocation incarnate." Fuchs, who was an expert on the subject of feminine attractions, knew what he was talking about. "Shameless and impudent," adds Heinrich von Treitschke, "and as insatiable in her voluptuous desires as Sempronia, she could converse with charm among friends; manage mettlesome horses; sing in thrilling fashion; and recite amorous poems in Spanish. The King, an admirer of feminine beauty, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... words to waste on impudent young fellers as comes from nobody knows where," he said loftily. "My words is addressed to my niece, as I see sitting there, a-deceiving of her lawful rellytive and guardian. Go you home ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... in speechless admiration. The dancing eyes were impudent, the red lips curved scornfully, and she made a daring little moue at him as she readjusted her black lace veil so that a heavy bit of its pattern ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... up from Marseilles after the affair of the jeweller's shop, we had stopped at Melun, beyond Fontainebleau. There, a well-known carriage-builder had been ordered to repaint the car pale blue, with a dead white band. Upon the panels, my employer, the impudent Bindo, had ordered a count's coronet, with the cipher "G. B." beneath, all to be done in the best style and regardless of expense. Then, that same evening, we took the express to the Gare de Lyon, and put up, as before, ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... as she beheld Marie's very lips lose their glowing tint, and her eyes gaze on vacancy. "For God's sake, still thine impudent tongue; thou'lt ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... passed the reporter coldly over. Ah, that mysterious, cold mask, the mouth with its bitter, impudent smile, an atrocious smile which seemed to say to the reporter: "If it is not I who poured the poison, then ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... issue between them. To be hailed as little boy was bad enough, but to be reminded of his crowning misfortune was adding insult to injury. He rose and cautiously approached the fence with the intention of pinching the impudent stranger, suddenly and surreptitiously, and sending her away weeping. As his hand crept between the palings on its wicked mission, the little miss looked at him ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... in the midst of the mutiny. 'The boatswain and carpenter were fully at liberty; the former was employed, on pain of death, to hoist the boats out, but the latter I saw acting the part of an idler, with an impudent and ill-looking countenance, which led me to believe he was one of the mutineers, until he was among the rest ordered to leave the ship, for it appeared to me to be a doubt with Christian, at first, whether he should keep the carpenter or his mate ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... Johnson, Priestley, in his Appeal to the Public, part ii, published in 1792 (Works, xix. 502), thus writes, answering 'the impudent falsehood that when I was at Oxford Dr. Johnson left a company on my being ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... extreme surprise. When Steel concluded he touched the bell. Alexander responded with his usual cheerful and impudent air. His master addressed him with some severity. "What about that summons which was served by you on Mr. ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... What reputation, and reward belongs to it Thus (with the head) I seize on, and make mine; And be not impudent to ask me why, Sirrah, Nor bold to stay, read in mine eyes the reason: The shame and obloquy I leave thine own, Inherit those rewards, they are fitter for thee, Your oyl's spent, and your snuff ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... all over, The vicious all their vices cover; The insolent their insolence, The proud their pride, the false their fraud, The thief his theft, her filth the bawd, The impudent, their impudence. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... grew. I have seen him daily visit a wren's nest without once alarming the little black-eyed mother. I have heard him give the red-bird's call, and heard that loveliest of all birds answer him. And I have seen the impudent jays, within reach of his hand, swear at him unabashed and unafraid, because ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... Livingstone. "The invitations are at my disposal now; and if I choose to withhold two of them, no one will be blamed but Nero, who was careless and dropped them! 'Lena has nothing decent to wear, and I don't feel like expending much more for a person so ungrateful as she is. You ought to have heard how impudent she was that time you all ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... to call you a coward and a betrayer!" replied Gabriel, whose face had begun to glow, as he heard his sister spoken of with such impudent levity. "If it is thus that insults are avenged in towns, we fishers have a different plan. Ah! so you flattered yourself with the thought of bringing desolation aid disgrace into our home, and of paying infamous assassins to come ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Spanish admiral saw this insignificant fleet approaching, he made ready to sink it to the bottom, and when the leading vessel made its way directly toward his own ship, as if with the impudent intention of boarding her, he did not fire at her, but let her come on. The few pirates on board the fire-ship ran her up against the side of the great man-of-war; and after making her fast and applying their matches, they immediately slipped overboard, and swam ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... contend, is supplied by the philosophy of the complex vision; a philosophy which, while remaining frankly anthropomorphic and mythological, does not, in any narrow or impudent or complacent manner, slur over the bitter ironies of this cruel world, or love the clear outlines of all drastic issues in a vague, unintelligible, ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... have had sufficient time or opportunity to ascertain that yet, I should imagine," observed Vernon; "for, with all the modest assurance with which you are so superabundantly blessed, you can't have already been paul-prying, and poking that impudent nose of yours into every hole and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... one as knows the story, and is playin' the fool with it. It's a very impudent thing to do! It's not playing fair, that's what it isn't; and I'd like to ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and while thus engaged, one of his hands was furtively raising my petticoats. At last I felt one of his hands on my naked thigh—a shiver of desire ran through my frame. He cautiously ascended the snowy columns, and in a moment or two I felt an impudent finger in the outskirts of the domain of Venus. I instinctively lifted up my thighs in order to facilitate his curious researches, and soon experienced the most delicious sensations, for his finger had already divided the lips which formed the entrance of my moss-covered ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... people's silly curiosity? Good sense and good taste revolted at these exhibitions; but good sense and good taste are undemonstrative, while folly and vulgarity are bold and carry the day. In all such matters, we of this country allow ourselves to be misrepresented by a comparatively few impudent people, with their own ends to serve. This book is somewhat open to like objections. Its title is too pretentious; its style is braggart, and tainted with the vulgarity of an English flash reporter; and yet this is tempered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... impudent lot to sit there staring at us in that supercilious manner," said Colonel Talbot. "Shall I take the Invincibles, sir, and teach ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... impudent of him," said Oisille, "to pervert the meaning of the text to suit his fancy, thinking that he had to do with beasts like himself, and shamelessly trying to entice the poor little women so that he might teach them how to eat raw flesh ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... punish you again so soon, you impudent fellow. You are not fit to be in school. I will inform your parents ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... the nature of your language, sir," said the Rev. Thomas Tozer angrily, thinking it was an impudent undergraduate. "I don't understand you, sir; but I desire at once to know your ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... lady operator who was impudent to the District Supervisor on the telephone the other day would have been severely reprimanded but for her plea that she mistook ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... "The most impudent one, I think," replied Mr. Sayles, to whom the remark was addressed. "If I had been in the place of the justice, I would have kicked him out of the hall. Little upstart! to come in there, and presume to speak in behalf of ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... went over to a mirror, carefully arranged his tie, and put on his straw hat at exactly the most impudent angle. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... my jokes by calling names—a phrase, by the way, which, forgetting his Watts' Hymns, and failing to consult his Johnson, he characterized as not English. I was, he said, a "shallow, pretending ninny;" an "impudent illiterate lad;" "a fanatic" and a "frantic person;" the "low underling of a faction," and "Peter the Hermit;" and, finally, as the sum-total of the whole he assured me that I stood in his "estimation the most ignoble and despised in the whole range of the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... mother," said Willie, defending himself, "it was very impudent of him, and I did speak very respectfully to him in tone if not in words. The fact is I felt nettled, for, after all, what is Miss Ward? The society she mingles in is Miss Tippet's society, and that's not much to boast of; and her father, I believe, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... not the most impudent rogue I ever came across...! Do you really think I would ask you, if ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... "You impudent boy!" exclaimed Miss Rachel, in great indignation. Then relapsing into melancholy, "I'm a poor afflicted creetur, and the sooner I leave this ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... I bear to hear such a creature talk of love to me? I shall be out of all patience with him. Besides, I thought that he did not dare to make or talk of these impudent preparations.—So inconsistent as such are with my brother's views—but ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Richambeau, and defying a great French war-ship. He would set his gunners to work. If he only had as good a marksman as Ranulph himself, the deserter should drop at the first shot "death and the devil take his impudent face!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was of service, by forcibly diverting my thoughts from the various painful reflections which must otherwise have pressed on my mind. But at length, after hallooing repeatedly to Andrew to ride slower, I became seriously incensed at his impudent perseverance in refusing either to obey or to reply to me. My anger was, however, quite impotent. I attempted once or twice to get up alongside of my self-willed guide, with the purpose of knocking him off his horse with the butt-end of my whip; but Andrew ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... gloomy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "Addio di Napoli" ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... young man who accompanied her. The escort was a person Beardsley had never seen before, quite handsome and quite aware of it, with an impudent world-wisdom centered about his sharp eyes. He turned immediately to Mandleco with a bluster as phony as it ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... "You impudent rascal," cried Edwards. "What do you mean by this. If you do not instantly go, I will arrest you myself. See my daughter, forsooth! Get out of here, fellow!" and he made a threatening step forward, and then fell back again, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... news Farragut took fire. Between him and the impudent little Confederate flotilla, whose easy triumph had suddenly laid low the hopes and plans of his brother admiral, there stood nothing save the guns of Port Hudson. These batteries he would pass, and for the fourth time, yet ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... Skin tepees rose outside our palisades like an army of mushrooms. Naked brats with wisps of hair coarse as a horse's mane crawled over our mounted cannon, or scudded between our feet like pups, or felt our European clothes with impudent wonder. Young girls having hair plastered flat with bear's grease stood peeping shyly from tent flaps. Old squaws with skin withered to a parchment hung over the campfires, cooking. And at the loopholes pressed the braves and ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... surveillance of the police for nearly two years, has been tried as a criminal, and sentenced to pay a fine of two thousand dollars, and banished the Philippines for six years. And for what, does the reader suppose? For kicking out of his house an impudent Spanish tailor who had presented himself there during a ball given by Mr. Diggles to Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker and Major-General Lord Saltoun, during their visit to Manilla ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... eager faces waiting at the window, and each morning also found the two expectant birds perched on the laurel-bushes. The feathered company was soon swelled by the arrival of some impudent and very quarrelsome sparrows, a pair of chaffinches, and a darling little blue titmouse, who, with his cousin a cole-titmouse, soon became quite at their ease. By common consent all the other birds avoided the sparrows. "They are common, idle creatures, you know," said the Robin, "and ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... about morals. She's a merlatter herself; keeps a place 'bout six houses down, first street to the left." The man stared impudently as he spoke, but Ram Juna said, "Thank you," with his usual politeness as he went out. The Hindu noted the impudent stare, but he went ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... what his maladies were. True, one city doctor, a visiting friend of the Pennimans' family physician, had once gone carefully over him, punching, prodding, listening, to announce that nothing ailed the invalid; which showed, as the judge had said to his face, that he was nothing but an impudent young squirt. He had never revealed this parody of a diagnosis to his anxious family, who always believed the city doctor had found something deadly that might at any time ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... should display my shape like those indecent women who wear gowns so low that impudent eyes can stare at their ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... Pinkey for the applause that he had earned, Chook stepped up to the machine and, with an impudent grin at Pinkey, grasped the handles. The pointer moved slowly round, and passed Stinky's mark, but Chook held on, determined to eclipse his rival. His muscles seemed to be cracking with pain, the seconds ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... dark. You might think that one with so black a coat would be fond of the Black Shadows, but it isn't so at all. The fact is, bold and impudent as Blacky the Crow is in daylight, he is afraid of the dark. He is quite as timid as anybody I know of in the dark. So Blacky always contrives to go to bed early and is securely hidden away in his secret roosting-place by the time the Black Shadows reach the ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess
... impresa. Imprison malliberigi. Improbable neversxajna. Improper nedeca. Impropriety nedececo. Impromptu senprepara. Improve plibonigi. Improvement plibonigo. Improvident malspxarema. Improvise improvizi. Imprudent nesingardema. Impudent senhonta. Impulse pusxo. Impure malpura. Impurity malpureco. Impute alkalkuli. In en. In front antauxe. In place of, to put anstatauxi. In that manner tiamaniere. Inability neebleco. Inaccessible neatingebla. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... impudent lower-school fellows," said Montagu, speaking to Duncan. "Here! you go first," he said, seizing Wildney by the arm, and giving him a swing, which, as he was by no means steady on his legs, brought him sprawling to the ground, and sent Watts's ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... said, hotly, "that the impudent ragamuffins of the town should be allowed to cast words of disrespect in the public streets at my sainted master, Rabba bar Chana, the man of profound learning and ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... and a lot more. Of course, Sammy Jay was there, but Sammy didn't try to keep out of sight. Oh, my, no! He joined right in with the Crows, calling Hooty all sorts of bad names and flying about just out of reach in the most impudent way. You see he knew just how ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... The constant habit of meeting and discussing subjects connected with their own interests, in their own fields, and 'under their own fig-trees', with their landlords and Government functionaries of all kinds and degrees, prevents their ever feeling or appearing impudent or obtrusive; though it certainly tends to give them stentorian voices, that often startle us when they come into our houses to discuss the same points ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... are out, most magnificently bound; but all won't do. He only says, "If she'd please me, she'd give up that cursed opera-box. Why, the rent of that thing—only to sit in and hear Italian women squealing and squalling, and to see impudent, outlandish baggages kicking up their heels higher than any decent heads ought to be—the rent, I say, would maintain a parish rector, or keep half-a-dozen parish schools a-going." As for her books, that all the world besides are in raptures about, the old squire ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... "Three, by heaven! That for managers!" and snapped his fingers. His companion asked an explanation of this strange conduct. "You'll know before you have strutted in three more barns," said the "old hand." "In winter, managers are the most impudent fellows living, because they know we don't like to travel, don't like to leave our nests, fear the cold, and all that. But when I can put my foot upon three daisies—summer's near, and managers may whistle ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... postponed on one pretext and another, until the lender finally lost all patience and informed him roundly that he must settle or stand suit. Then followed an interchange of words that in an instant terminated the pleasant connection of the preceding months. Parsons was described as "an impudent scoundrel who would be taught what honesty meant." Parsons described himself as "knowing what honesty meant full well, and needing no lessons from a fugitive from justice." White with rage, Knight bundled his belongings together, called a hackney coach, and within ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... himself on what he considered an almost military bearing. Sarah Hibson, farmer Hibson's dimple-chinned and saucy-eyed daughter, had been "carryin' on a good bit" with a soldier who was a smart, well-set-up, impudent fellow, and it was the manifest duty of any other young fellow who had considered himself to be "walking out with her" to look after his charges. His Grace had been most particular about George's keeping ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Impudent scoundrel!" said Mr. Troy, when he and Moody were in the street again. "What could my friend mean by recommending him? Fancy his expecting me to trust him with ten pounds! I consider even the guinea ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... here haue writ to Fortenbrasse, Nephew to olde Norway, who impudent And bed-rid, scarely heares of this his Nephews purpose: and Wee heere dispatch Yong good Cornelia, and you Voltemar For bearers of these greetings to olde Norway, giuing to you no further personall power To businesse with the King, ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... again. Somebody then kicked him so sharply that he roused himself up, and, opening his eyes, was dazzled by the gleam of a bull's-eye lantern. He could not at first imagine where he was; but as he presently found that a big policeman had him by the collar, and was calling him "an impudent young thief," he began to ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... so impudent grown, They'll domineer, vapour, and swagger, And say that the plain-dealing man Was born to die a beggar: But men that are honestly given Do such evil actions detest, And every one that is well-minded Will say that plain dealing is best. For this I will make it appear, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... he, but his emergence forced the door— He found it inconvenient to be poor. Has God then given its sweetness to the cane— Unless his laws be trampled on—in vain? Built a brave world, which cannot yet subsist, Unless his right to rule it be dismissed? Impudent blasphemy! so Folly pleads, And, avarice being judge, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... has a rage for saying something, when there's nothing to be said." Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet addressed "To the most impudent Man alive." He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversey now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and Mallet were the ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... him conduct Pearse from the great chamber, and as they passed out, little Pascherette peered up at Pearse with an impudent smile, and with her head on one side like ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... ("What a strangely innocent young man!—or is it impudent boldness?"—That was what was going on in her mind, I think, as she bored at me with the little gimlets. But she said—) "We make it an inflexible rule not to allow our young ladies to see any but their own relations, except, of course, ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... time ago, who was well received for two years, among the gentlemen of Northamptonshire, by calling himself my brother. At last he grew so impudent as by his influence to get tenants turned out of their farms. Allen the printer, who is of that county, came to me, asking, with much appearance of doubtfulness, if I had a brother; and upon being assured I had none alive, he told me of the imposition, and immediately wrote to the ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... itched to seize and burn the impudent huzzy, lying there as unconcerned as though she had been the 'Private Meditations and Prayers of the Rev. Bagge,'" Mrs. Crawley confided to her Aunt Elizabeth, "but it was a six-shilling book, and I knew how Crawley valued it, and for ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... I'll put my standing against that of any department store in existence! This is a mere impudent speculation, impossible to carry out in the face of the public opinion ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... fellow answered, with an impudent air, which clearly seemed to ask: "What have you ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate, eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one; and what we have always read of the elections of Polish Kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat, and model into every form, lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... "she was no better than she should be; you were petting in your house for two months the most impudent ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the honor to inform you that in the royal judgment your proposal is the most absurd, impudent and audacious ever made; that the system which you propose to set up is revolutionary and mischievous beyond the dreams of treason; that only in a nation of rogues and idiots could ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... dog off!" shouted Mr. Prideaux to the butcher, who watched the attack with impudent satisfaction. "Call him off, or my dog will kill ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Kaiser's Government in each trial of strength. They have learned to consider all attempts of the lesser peoples (Britain, France and Russia included) to maintain themselves against the Teutonic onset as impudent attacks on sacred Germany, which also illuminates the fact that Germans call the present struggle—"Germany's holy, ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... "Inclinations—well, yes. I should be sorry to annoy Monsieur Urbain de la Mariniere, who is on my side in these affairs. He is a sensible man. His brother's right place is in a state prison. As to that son of his—well, he wants a sharp lesson, and one of these days he will have it. He is an impudent young scoundrel, that ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... to undertake a task that might be fatal to himself and foredoomed to failure. In that case she does not bear herself like a heroine, and strengthens the suspicion, as we have said, that the story of pleading with Nelson to offer his services is an impudent fabrication. Minto says that the tears and swooning is a strange picture, and assures him as before that nothing can be more pure and ardent than this flame; and she might have added that they had in ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Chevrial. He approached the table with confidence, produced his passport, and sat down to await such questions as might be asked him. Pachmann glanced at the Frenchman and his eyes narrowed with anger, for this impudent person appeared to be amused at the proceedings! Then he picked up the passport and studied it carefully. It had been issued by the French government two months previously, as a renewal of a former passport, to Andre Chevrial, wine-merchant, of 18 Rue des Chantiers, Paris; whose ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... most impudent and cheeky boy I ever met!" he said to himself. "Last evening, I positively forbade his getting into my boat and he don't take the slightest notice of it. He needn't think ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... vagaries of a hysterical girl, the fits, the palsy, the half-unconsciousness have all been assumed within my own observation by children from ten to fifteen years old, and I have more than once had to give place to the ignorant and impudent pretender who traded successfully on the feelings of the parents. Sometimes, one knows not why, except that the child has got tired of the part he was playing, the symptoms that had caused so much anxiety suddenly ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... Relate amusing stories, chiefly of other countries, and even of other times, so as not to offend any one. If engaged in discussion—and a coach is almost the only place where discussion should not be avoided—state facts and arguments rather than opinions. Never answer impudent ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... fact that he had once terrified her. These cool words threw into Hilda a vivid excitement of feeling, which for a time turned all her thoughts upon this man, who under such circumstances dared to resume that tone of impudent superiority which once before he had ventured to adopt. Her strength revived under such a stimulus, and for a time her bitter contempt and indignation stilled the deep sorrow and anxiety ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... eyes, and black hair, which formed natural curls on each side of his forehead. His manner was at once noble, open, and modest; he presented himself with ease and good manners, having neither the hypocritical nor impudent behavior of a monk, or the forward assurance of a fashionable coxcomb, but the manners of a well-bred man, who, without blushing for his habit, set a value on himself, and ever felt in his proper situation when in good company. Though Father Cato was not deeply studied for a doctor, he was ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... in the past: I believe profoundly that the risk is all the other way. I believe that the most deadly danger to our arms to-day lies in any whiff of that self-praise, any flavour of that moral cowardice, any glimpse of that impudent and ultimate impenitence, that may make one Boer or Scot or Welshman or Irishman or Indian feel that he is only smoothing the path for a second Prussia. I have passed the great part of my life in criticising ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... resignation from Grant's Cabinet in 1870, The Nation said, "In peace as in war 'that is best blood which hath most iron in't;' and much is to be excused to the man [that is, Judge Hoar] who has for the first time in many years of Washington history given a back-handed blow to many an impudent and arrogant dispenser of patronage. He may well be proud of most of the enmity that he won while in office, and may go back contented to Massachusetts to be her most honored citizen."[192] Two months later Lowell wrote to Godkin, "The bound volumes of ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... pressing the officers with questions, when Dunscomb, indignant at the advantage he was taking of their situation, replied to Clinton that "under other circumstances he would not dare insult them in that manner." For this the young lieutenant was called "an impudent rebel," and the British officers threatened to have him hanged. Dunscomb's courage was equal to the occasion, and, scouting the threat, declared that Washington would hang man for man in return, and that as for himself he should give Clinton no further information. But stoutly as Dunscomb ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... all this political chicanery and impudent pretence of popular representation, there sits an autocratic, irresponsible, hereditary legislative body, consisting exclusively of idlers and parasites who reserve to themselves the right of rejecting all laws which do not clearly further their own exactions and monopolies! Then ask yourselves: ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... replied, in a carefully considered speech, that he had never seen anything more pleasant. This artifice, however, was of no avail to the wolf. The lion meted out the same treatment to him as to the bear, tearing him up for his impudent flattery. The fox, who had witnessed all this, and how both the simplicity of the bear and the flattery of the wolf had given equal offence to the lion, was in great perplexity what to answer when it came to his turn. He went forward, ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... gentleman. A little over-dressed perhaps; as, also, a little lofty to the two rather battered but otherwise decent enough men who, being so much older than he, took the liberty of first accosting him. "Brisk" is his biographer's description of him. Feather-headed, flippant, and almost impudent, you might have been tempted to say of him had you joined the little party at that moment. But those two tumbled, broken-winded, and, indeed, broken-hearted old men had been, as an old author says, so emptied from vessel to vessel—they had had a life of such sloughs and stiff climbs—they ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... Let not the greediness of the belly nor lust of the flesh take hold of me; and give not over me thy servant into an impudent mind. ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... House, Covent Garden.—In 1763 appeared a small volume under the title of Memoirs of the Bedford Coffee House, by Genius, dedicated to the most Impudent Man alive. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... "You impudent little whipper-snapper," roared Jack Curtiss, "if you weren't such a shrimp I'd lick you for that remark, but you're all beneath my notice. All I want to say to you is keep away from my orchard or I'll ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... these points, then one must avow that one will say no more; if he denies neither of them, and yet continues to urge his arguments in opposition to one, then one must say that it is impossible for any one ever to expect to see a more impudent man. And it will be well to dwell on this point as if nothing besides were to be said, as if nothing could be said in contradiction, by reciting several times over what is written; by often contrasting the conduct ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... with his back against the bulkhead, his hands in the pockets of his dinner coat; from the corner of his mouth his long cigarette-holder was cocked at an impudent angle. There was a tumult of angry voices, and the eyes of all were turned upon him. Outwardly at least he met them with complete indifference. The voice of one of my countrymen, a noisy pest named Smedburg, was raised in ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... gave him an odor of aristocracy; and now, as a man of fashion, he was so impudent as to set up a tilbury and a groom and haunt the clubs. One line will account for this: he gambled on the Bourse with the money intrusted to him by the kept women of his acquaintance. Finally he fell into the hands of the police, and was charged with ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... echoed. "It's the most impudent thing I ever heard of. Didn't you tell him that you wouldn't ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... as this miserable, old, wrinkled, impudent she-devil enjoys! Don't tell me, Corny; there is no such thing as fortune-telling; at least, nothing that can be depended on in all cases—and this is one of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... her arms ground him, and giving him a kiss that more than made amends for the slap, "how you frightened me; you naughty boy. I thought it was one of those Yankee soldiers. They often come begging for cream or cherries, and get more impudent every day." ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... equaled or surpassed since, they held with easy grasp the pre-eminence among all American rulers who had shone and flourished up to the time when those great men gave us new ideas upon the science of government. The average and quiet citizen, shocked as he might be and grumble as he did at the impudent plundering by our masters, their contempt of public opinion and the cynical display of their luxury, would doubtless have confined himself to grumbling and to calling for slow-arriving thunderbolts to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... revolution in Ireland,—that is, a revolution of a portion of the Irish who followed certain leaders,—they were equally abusive of the people of Rome for daring, against the will of the pope, to assert any measure of civil or religious liberty, however modest. Impudent threats were made of sending an Irish army to the pope's assistance, at the very time that the persons so vaunting were afraid of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... "You impudent young shrimp. I don't believe a word of it. And let me tell you, young man, that I'll send whoever I please to do the work here, ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... their owner, husbands and wives, parents and children, were constantly being severed, and negresses were habitually puffed as brood mares; the gentleman who had lately sold his half-brother, to be sent far south, because he was impudent; the devilish cruelty with which almost the only recorded slave insurrection was stamped out; the chase and capture and return in fetters of slaves who had escaped north, or, it might be, of free negroes in their ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... ruddy, impudent face, which instantly assumed an appearance of the most defiant unconcern, while its owner began to devote his energies to shying stones at an invisible rook upon the old church tower with great ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... So the impudent little baggage faced him out, on his own ground; and he was forced to admit to himself that, crude as she ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... dirty impudent slut," said the cook, "you go among all the fine lords and ladies with your filthy catskin? a fine figure you'd cut!" and with that she took a basin of water and dashed it into Catskin's face. But she only briskly shook her ears, and ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... not speak against Scotland to me,' said Mrs Macintyre. 'Remember it is my native land—the land of the heather, and the lochs, and the glorious mountains. It is the land of brave men and brave women, and I will not have it run down by any impudent English girl. I've got so many other English girls coming to the school that the loss of you four won't affect me much, ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... little to mitigate, and nothing to ennoble them—provided she could have her pleasures, and the king his sports, they cared not in what manner the revenue was raised or administered. Of course a system of favouritism existed at court, and the vilest and most impudent corruption prevailed in every department of state, and in every branch of administration, from the highest to the lowest. It is only the institutions of Christianity, and the vicinity of better-regulated states, which prevent kingdoms, under such circumstances of misrule, from sinking into a barbarism ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... any himself," Chia Cheng continued, "his wont is to first discuss the pros and cons of those of others; so it's evident that he's an impudent fellow!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... your own oats from your own horses. Love. That must be a lie; for I never allow them any. James. In a word, you are the bye-word everywhere; and you are never mentioned, but by the names of covetous, stingy, scraping, old— Love. Get along, you impudent villain! James. Nay, sir, you said you would n't be angry. Love. Get out, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... wilful; Her feet abide not in her house; Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, And lieth in wait at every corner. So she caught him, and kissed him, With an impudent face she said ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various |
