"Incorrigible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... [2131]corrected or controlled, but still soothed up in everything they do, that in conclusion "they bring sorrow, shame, heaviness to their parents" (Ecclus. cap. xxx. 8, 9), "become wanton, stubborn, wilful, and disobedient;" rude, untaught, headstrong, incorrigible, and graceless; "they love them so foolishly," saith [2132]Cardan, "that they rather seem to hate them, bringing them not up to virtue but injury, not to learning but to riot, not to sober life and conversation, but to all pleasure and licentious ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... accurate execution. As for me, I derived but one benefit from my old violin accompanier, that of becoming a good timist; in every other respect I received nothing but injury from our joint performances, getting into incorrigible habits of bad fingering, and of making up my bass with unscrupulous simplifications of the harmony, quite content if I came in with my final chords well thumped in time and tune with the emphatic scrape of the violin that ended our lesson. The music my master gave me, too, was more ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... that Radical theory so largely into fact, were both taught by Major. And they may well have been much influenced on this side by a man who had long before written that 'the original and supreme power resides in the whole of a free people, and is incapable of being surrendered,' insomuch that an incorrigible tyrant may always be 'deposed by that people as by a superior authority.'[6] For even Fergus the First, he narrates, 'had no right' other than the nation's choice, and when Sir William Wallace ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada, March 30th, 1492. The preamble alleges, in vindication of the measure, the danger of allowing further intercourse between the Jews and their Christian subjects, in consequence of the incorrigible obstinacy, with which the former persisted in their attempts to make converts of the latter to their own faith, and to instruct them in their heretical rites, in open defiance of every legal prohibition and penalty. When a college or corporation of any ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... by Christ; laments that any Christian should abandon himself to debauchery, and declares he will never cease to pursue sinners by his exhortations, as Christ did Judas, to the last moment: if any remain obstinately incorrigible, he shall esteem it a great happiness if he reclaim but one soul, or even prevent but one sin; at least that he can never see God offended and remain silent. (Hom. 1.) He sets off the advantages of afflictions, which are occasions of all virtue, and even in the reprobate, at least abate the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... "you are incorrigible. If poor Boden is to satisfy not only your old creditors but your new ones, the present I have made him would probably reduce him to beggary in a few months. No, no, this one mortgage is sufficient, and as it amounts to only a few thousand dollars, it shall be paid from my purse; and that my gift ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... by no means the first time that Parson, who was reputed by almost every one but himself and Telson to be an incorrigible scamp, had been haled away to this awful tribunal, and he was half regretting that he had not met his fate over the Caesar after all, and so escaped his present position, when another monitor appeared down the passage and met them. It ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... incorrigible! Why will you insist on belittling everything that you have done? I suppose you will claim next that you didn't risk imprisonment or death every minute of a whole day, just to help me, and that at Prezelay you didn't fight like a—a—yes, like a paladin!—to save me from being tortured by Herr ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... to confess that the Countess has written perhaps rather too much for the time she has been about it, and thus laid herself open to an accusation of bookmaking, the prevailing vice of the present race of authors. The incorrigible and merciless Mr Boas ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... generally women in whom the moral sense is very much developed. The victim of kleptomania will steal any and everything; they are like magpies in this respect. An acquaintance of mine, a most estimable lady, a devout Christian, and a most exemplary wife and mother, is the most incorrigible thief I ever saw. She has often picked my pockets while I was engaged about her sick-bed. The merchants of the city where she lives know her infirmity, watch her while she is in their shops, and respectfully and kindly relieve her of her ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... as a man of fantastic leisure. His indolence dishonoured the family. Perplexing eccentricities had grown intolerable. Only old Uncle Contarine stood by the boy. He still believed in and loved dear Noll, incorrigible as the good fellow was, and inexplicable from every vantage. When he returned poor Oliver had said, with his happy though here unconscious humour: "And now, my dear mother, after having struggled so hard to come ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... afterwards when he got his clerkship, his friends—he had some friends then—would have backed him to win in the race of life. But he has fallen off greatly since then. It is plain to see that he drinks, and he has also become an incorrigible liar—" ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... you," said Lady Delacour; "but I am incorrigible; I am not fit to hear myself convinced. After all, I am impelled by the genius of imprudence to tell you, that, in spite of Mr. Percival's cure for first loves, I consider love as a distemper that can ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... what can you expect when everybody knows what her mother was? And if these traveling salesmen would let her alone she would be all right, though I certainly don't believe she ought to be allowed to think she can pull the wool over our eyes. The sooner she's sent to the school for incorrigible girls down at Sauk Centre, the better for all and——Won't you just have a cup of coffee, Carol dearie, I'm sure you won't mind old Aunty Bogart calling you by your first name when you think how long I've known Will, and I was such a friend of his dear lovely mother ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... with Esquimaux dogs patience and kindness went farther than anything else in teaching them to know what was required of them, and in inducing them to accept the situation. Some of them are naturally lazy, and some of them are incorrigible shirks; and so there is in dog-driving a capital opportunity for the exercise of the ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... or imprison him for life is what you call neutralizing his influence," said Croustillac. "Ah, well, this is probably a political view of it. After all, I understand the distrust that I inspire you with, for I am an incorrigible conspirator. They cut off my head before my partisans, believing that thus I will be reformed. Not at all! instead of taking warning by this paternal admonition, I conspire still further. It is evident that this ends by making your master impatient. ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... the pleasures of the world—a love which, as it were, outlives itself; this utterly incorrigible sin, this refined and sublimated desire of the flesh, is the abstract form in which all lusts are concentrated, and to which it stands like a general idea to individual particulars. Accordingly, Avarice is the vice of age, just as extravagance is ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... you think is my latest activity, Daddy? You will begin to believe that I am incorrigible—I am writing a book. I started it three weeks ago and am eating it up in chunks. I've caught the secret. Master Jervie and that editor man were right; you are most convincing when you write about the things you know. And this time ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... "Grace, you are incorrigible," sighed her father, "but if ever again you find yourself in a snarl over the rashness of your friends, then remember that I am the wisest person to consult. It may save you considerable worry, and will be ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... on the 31st of July, he says: "As usual at this season of the year, I, incorrigible spouting Yankee, am writing an oration to deliver to the boys in one of our little country colleges nine days hence.... My whole philosophy—which is very real—teaches acquiescence and optimism. Only ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and pride would not allow me to see them in such servitude. When I returned home, I desired my servants to bring those two men to me; when they brought them, I had clothes made up for them, and kept them near me. But these incorrigible villains again laid a plan to murder me. One day at midnight, [340] finding all off their guard, they came like thieves to the head of my bed. I had maintained a guard at my door from apprehensions for ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... often give him the chance of trying. Of blame he was free enough. Not a good scolding to clear the air, such as Thomasina would give to Annie the lass, but his slow, caustic tongue was always growling, like muttered thunder, over John Broom's incorrigible head. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the Poor, p. 306, refers to an Act passed in 1741, respecting that class of the poor, who are considered by the Legislature as the outcasts of society, namely rogues, vagabonds, &c.; and he remarks: "From perusing the catalogue of actions which denominate a man, a disorderly person, a vagabond, or incorrigible rogue, the reader may perhaps incline to think that many of the offences specified in this Act, and in subsequent statutes, on the same subject, are of a very dubious nature, and that it must require nice legal ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... studious recluse could desire—where he was presently attended by his bailiff. He found that everything was going on as he could have wished. With one or two exceptions, his rents were paid most punctually; the farms and lands kept in capital condition. To be sure an incorrigible old poacher had been giving a little trouble, as usual, and stood committed for trial at the ensuing Spring Assizes; and a few trivial trespasses had been committed in search of firewood, and other small matters; which, after having been detailed with ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... its individual members. When Smith tells me that his automobile cost him three times as much as I know he has paid for it, I record my impressions by telling Jones as soon as I meet him that the man Smith is an incorrigible liar. But when Mrs. Smith tells me that her family is one of the oldest in Massachusetts, which I have every reason to believe is not so, I invariably say to myself or to some one else, "A woman's appreciation ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... is again, my incorrigible solemnity! Why "muddy"? What "gutter" names, called in a fit of jealousy, do not change the facts of the world. If Bimal is not mine, she is not; and no fuming, or fretting, or arguing will serve to prove that she is. If my heart is breaking—let ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... "Ah, you are incorrigible," she exclaimed, rising; "let us go and find Mary. I give you up; or, rather, I give myself up, as an adviser. For, after all, you are right—there is nothing worth doing in this bad world except looking after one's lung, or whatever ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... man was killed, wounded, or even insulted, after he surrendered. Had not the Britons during this contest received so many lessons of humanity, I should natter myself that this might teach them a little. But I fear they are incorrigible. ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... wild life, breaking his mother's heart and draining her purse by frequent forced loans. Cantinet senior, much addicted to spirituous liquors and idleness, had, in fact, been driven to retire from business by those two failings. So far from reforming, the incorrigible offender had found scope in his new occupation for the indulgence of both cravings; he did nothing, and he drank with drivers of wedding-coaches, with the undertaker's men at funerals, with poor folk relieved by the vicar, till his morning's occupation ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and moistening the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the cane, 'you're an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last thrashing did you no good, we must see what another will do towards beating it out ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... not come to that!" said the incorrigible Richard; but he was reduced to order by threats of being turned out, and contented himself with burning the soles of his boots against the bars of the grate in silence: and ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... the same in literature as in life. Wherever one goes one immediately comes upon the incorrigible mob of humanity. It exists everywhere in legions; crowding, soiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the numberless bad books, those rank weeds of literature which extract nourishment from the corn and ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... an incorrigible belief in his luck. Just as he had hoped, until he had all but believed, that his cousin John was as dead as he had told that very person he was, so now he hoped against all reason that he would be saved at the eleventh hour, that Roberts ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... Lord Inverforth's reward from the public? From first to last he has been attacked by a considerable section of the Press, and has been accused in Parliament of incredible waste and incorrigible stupidity. Let it be supposed (I do not grant it for a moment) that he made mistakes, even very great mistakes, still, on the total result of his gigantic labours, does not the public owe him a debt of gratitude? Has he not been an honest man at the head of a department where dishonesty ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... notion of truth. But I beseech you to reserve your judgment until we see it applied to the details which lie before us. I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... my lips. In truth, I rather wish to preserve that accent as my only memento of my native land; it recalls to my mind the plaintive and harmonious sounds of the sea-breeze that are heard at noon beneath the lofty palms. You may also have noticed that incorrigible indolence of walk and attitude, so different from the vivacity of French women, which indicates in the Creole a wild and natural frankness that knows not how to feign ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hanged!" replied the incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman—by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of Titian's beauties, and the voice of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... explaining away the exculpatory remarks with which he had before assisted his opponents. But not a bit: he repeated the same thing, and made a second speech quite as moderate as his first. The Duke is therefore incorrigible. My mother told him the other day how angry they were with him for what he had said, and he only replied, 'Depend ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... biographical statements careless, and his chirography frequently very bad. In such cases the proof-reader is sorely tried; and unless he is a man of much patience, well versed in the art of deciphering incorrigible manuscripts, and supplying all their deficiencies, his last state will, to speak mildly, ...
— The Importance of the Proof-reader - A Paper read before the Club of Odd Volumes, in Boston, by John Wilson • John Wilson
... promised. Besides, the Warroo or Guarano Indian who gave it me—out on the Essequibo; it was when I went to Demerara—told me it wouldn't keep. So I wouldn't trust it. Much better stick to nice, wholesome, old-fashioned Prussic Acid." He had quite dropped his serious tone, and resumed his incorrigible levity. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... "You are incorrigible," said the king. "I doubt if all mankind are made after the image of God. I think many of the race resemble the devil, and I look upon you, Pollnitz, as a tolerably successful portrait of his satanic majesty. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... in painting and the arts; it is attributed to the love of money. A picture representing the sack of Troy gives occasion for a mock-tragic poem of some length, doubtless aimed at Nero's effusions. The poet is pelted as a bore, and has to decamp in haste. But he is incorrigible. He returns, and this time brings a still longer and more pretentious poem. Some applaud; others disapprove. Encolpius, seized with a fit of melancholy, thinks of hanging himself, but is persuaded to live by the artless caresses of a fair boy ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... followed many were the governesses set up by Mrs. Bryce to be promptly knocked down, as it were, by Isabelle. They would either depart of their own accord, or they would be sent flying by the irate Mrs. Bryce after some escapade of her incorrigible offspring. ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... "Journalist! Incorrigible newsmonger! All right, take notes for your article describing this appalling adventure. So, then, Fandor, the lamp once out, the hours go by, a trifle more slowly in the darkness than in the light. You are silent and still like a little Moses ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... been as clay in the hands of the potter—a pliant willow in the grasp of the careful trainer. A nature constituted like mine is, of all others, the most flexible; but it is also, of all others, the most resisting and incorrigible. Approach it with a judicious regard to its affections, and you do with it what you please. Let it but fancy that it is the victim of your injustice, however slight, and the war is an ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the pretty comedienes from the Varietes leaning upon his arm. This meeting gave Amedee one heart-ache the more. It was for such a husband as this, then, that Maria, buried in some country place, was probably at this very time overwhelmed with fears about his safety. It was for this incorrigible rake that she had disdained her friend from childhood, and scorned the most delicate, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... very commonplace, merry, rosy, romping child. I may add that it is well to bear in mind the converse of this; to remember that body and mind rarely grow in equal proportion at one time; that the incorrigible little dunce, though not likely to prove a genius as he grows older, will yet very probably be found at twelve or fourteen to know as much as his playmates. A dull mind, and a sickly or ill-developed frame may make us anxious: but if the physical development is good, the mind will not be ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... incorrigible, M. Vandeloup,' she said, as she turned to go. 'However, don't forget what I said, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Indians in service or should collect any contributions; and a certain amount of abatement of this unjust practice seems to have resulted. Those who are most notorious in this matter, and who are worse than all the others, are the members of the Order of St. Augustine. They are practically incorrigible, on account of having as provincial Fray Lorenco de Leon, a friar of much ambition and ostentation. He left these islands to ask your Majesty for bounty, and now he is striving to go again, and for that purpose has collected a large amount of money. He has even taken the silver from some ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... have taken up Berni. The latter offends me. I suppose we women do not really care for humour. You are right in saying we have none ourselves, and 'cackle' instead of laugh. It is true (of me, at least) that 'Falstaff is only to us an incorrigible fat man.' I want to know what he illustrates. And Don Quixote—what end can be served in making a noble mind ridiculous?—I hear you say—practical. So it is. We are very narrow, I know. But we like wit—practical again! Or in your words (when I really think they generally ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perfectly incorrigible, I suppose there is no use being angry with you," she said, still with a little pout on her lips. "But I will forgive ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... noted that some tiles were out of order up there. Four o'clock! Ah, here was a fellow coming! And instinctively he crisped his hands that were buried in his pockets, and ran over to himself his opening words. Then, with a sensation of disgust, he saw that the advancing laborer was that incorrigible 'land lawyer' Gaunt. The short, square man with the ruffled head and the little bright-gray eyes saluted, uttered an "Afternoon, Sir Gerald!" in his teasing voice, and stood still. His face wore the jeering twinkle ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... further parley, the reverend visitors grew angry, threw the written record of the conversation in the fire, and left the prison, to report the prisoner incorrigible. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the subjects of this moral transformation, is precisely the class which they denounce as being, and as always having been, in respect of its devotion to dollars, the most notorious, and the most notoriously incorrigible. ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... Mr. Washington handed the old man the dollar and drove on. He never could be made to feel that by these spontaneous generosities he was encouraging thriftlessness and mendicancy. He was incorrigible in his unscientific open-handedness with the poor, begging older members ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... come to her senses when she finds herself so situated, perhaps," he retorted testily; "and if she does not, it will just show that she is incorrigible." ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... besides which, the mercantile returns, on this account alone, are reported to have arisen, in latter times, to a very considerable amount.* The individuals themselves, doubtless, in some instances, proved incorrigible; but it happened also, not very unfrequently, that, during the period of their legal servitude, they became reconciled to a life of honest industry, were altogether reformed in their manners, and rising gradually by laudable efforts, to situations of advantage, independence, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... survived. The father and his employer are sketched, unforgetably, in Lamb's essay on "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple," Salt, under his own name, and Lamb under that of Lovel: "I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty. A good fellow withal and 'would strike.' In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents." The whole passage must be read in the essay itself. From his father Charles Lamb inherited at once his literary leanings and his ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... within close offices. Around the Athenian Agora, a true type of this preference, and busy with this delightful idleness, half a century earlier could have been seen a droll figure with "indescribable nose, bald head, round body, eyes rolling and twinkling with good humor," scantily clad,—an incorrigible do-nothing, windbag, and hanger-on, a later century might assert,—yet history has given to him ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... and daily observance of religious duties, and the exciting hope of reward for good behaviour in a mitigation of their sentence: in short, by the most encouraging and kind treatment, as far as is compatible with the strictness of prison discipline. None therefore, but the thoroughly incorrigible, can leave the institution without being greatly improved in their habits and dispositions, if not altogether reformed; since Order, Cleanliness, Activity, and Industry, must become almost natural to them by the time they are discharged,—their ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... sending the boy to England to school, more to get rid of him than from any real desire to improve his mind. The mother objected to this. Then the stepfather tried to effect a compromise by sending him to Harvard College in Massachusetts, for he had relatives in Boston who might keep an eye on the incorrigible youth; but the fond mother clung to her son, and having a fair education herself, Robert and his sister, a pale little creature, whose great dark eyes were like her mother's, became pupils with the mother for teacher. She was an indulgent preceptress ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... educate their young in the way they should go, as does the fox. He is a good husband, an excellent father, capable of friendship, and a very intelligent member of society; but all the while, it must be confessed, an incorrigible ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... not get a word more out of him. Mooch told him all about it. Olivier was horrified, quarreled with Colette, and begged Christophe to forgive his imprudence. Christophe was incorrigible, and quoted for his benefit an old French saying, which he adapted so as to infuriate poor Mooch, who was present to share in the happiness of ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... many Idiots has it made wise! How many Fools eloquent! How many home-bred Squires accomplish'd! How many Cowards brave! And there is no sort of Species of Mankind on whom it cannot work some Change and Miracle, if it be a noble well-grounded Passion, except on the Fop in Fashion, the harden'd incorrigible Fop; so often wounded, but never reclaim'd: For still, by a dire Mistake, conducted by vast Opiniatrety, and a greater Portion of Self-love, than the rest of the Race of Man, he believes that Affectation in his Mein and Dress, that Mathematical Movement, that Formality in every ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... in our story, alas here it is. Gissing, incorrigible seceder from responsibilities that did not touch his soul, did not dare tell his benefactor the horrid truth. But the worm was in his heart. Late one night, in his room at Mrs. Purp's, he wrote a letter to Mr. Poodle. After mailing it at a street-box, he had a sudden pang. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... "Incorrigible child;" cried the father, pushing back his chair, rising and walking the room back and forth, with a sad and clouded brow. He had many misgivings for the future. The frank, convivial, generous spirit of Louis would ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... has a very nice and persistent sense of humour, and his last book, But She Meant Well (LANE), shows him in his most natural and therefore best vein. His lady of the good intentions was one Hannah Neighbour, an incorrigible infant whose eminently virtuous resolves produced the most vicious results without the adventitious aid of any extraordinary circumstances. There is generally about people who mean well something ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... compressed; the anecdotes would have been more numerous, and my own remarks fewer; some portraits would have been left out, others drawn, and all better finished. I should then have attempted more frequently to expose meanness to contempt, and treachery to abhorrence; should have lashed more severely incorrigible vice, and oftener held out to ridicule puerile vanity and outrageous ambition. In short, I should then have studied more to please than to instruct, by addressing myself seldomer to the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... — Drove out in a dilapidated buggy, and with an incorrigible horse, to Mean Meer, the cantonments of Lahore. The place looked burnt up and glaring like its fellows, and a fierce hot wind swept over it, which made us glad enough to turn our backs on it and hurry home again as fast as our obstinate animal would take us. The Q.M.G., we found, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... the approach of some dignitary of the Catholic Church. He immediately began to mumble something, ran forward, and on his knees implored a blessing from the priest, crossing himself with reverential air. Ah, what it is to have faith! Landor, Landor, you are incorrigible! Don't you think so, Giallo?" asked the master of his dog. "I never heard Moore sing, much to my regret. I once asked him, but he excused himself with a sigh, saying that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... I protest, my dear Pastor," the lively Mrs. Hartvig interrupted him eagerly, "this is going too far! Even if this incorrigible Mr. Lintzow and my crazy sons have succeeded in storming your house and home, I won't resign the last remnants of my authority. The entertainment shall most certainly be my affair. Off you go, young ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... worse for them than I am sure I could if they would but be quiet and suffer themselves to be saved. It is a curious speculation in history to see how often the good people of England have played this game over and over again, and how incorrigible they are in it. To desire war without reflection, to be unreasonably elated with success, to be still more unreasonably depressed by difficulties, and to call out for peace with an impatience which makes suitable terms unattainable, are ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... men, no doubt, than ever stood in your stockings, had pocketed thankfully the gifts of ancient, time-honored custom. My uncle, however, though not with the carnal recusancy which besieged the spiritual efforts of poor Cuthbert Headrigg, that incorrigible worldling, yet still with intermitting doubts, followed my mother's earnest entreaties, and the more meritoriously (I conceive), as he yielded, in a point deeply affecting his interest, to a system of arguments very imperfectly convincing to his understanding. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... "He's an incorrigible visionary," said Mrs. Mifflin. "To hear him talk you might think no one had had a square meal since Dickens died. You might think that all landladies died with ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... incorrigible;—but remember, I expect your mirth on this subject to be under such restraint, that it shall neither offend this worthy man's feelings nor those of Miss Bertram, who may be more apt to feel upon his account than he on his own. And so good-night, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... fellows, or, as we think their general demeanour entitles them to be called, "Blackguard Nobs," are a lot of little, scrubby, bad-blooded, groom-like fellows, who have always, even from childhood, been incorrigible, of whom nursery governesses could make nothing, and whose education tutors abandoned in despair; expelled from Eton, rusticated at Cambridge, good for nothing but mischief in boyhood, regularly bred scamps and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the human serpent is thus over everything. Truth independent; truth that we FIND merely; truth no longer malleable to human need; truth incorrigible, in a word; such truth exists indeed superabundantly—or is supposed to exist by rationalistically minded thinkers; but then it means only the dead heart of the living tree, and its being there means only that truth also has its paleontology ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... savings since her widowhood. It might be considered a valiant effort to compensate them for the breaking of her promise, but Gerrard knew that her tradesmen's bills would have to be settled by the Durbar in consequence. The lady was clearly incorrigible, and he ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... he might betray and injure in the public estimation, in rapacity, or in discharging a blunderbuss full of falsehood against the most pure and unimpeachable Member of society! Is it not astonishing this wretched, braying, incorrigible mendicant does not put on a more firm and unalterable resolution of taking pattern by, and living in accordance with the laudable and exemplary habits of members of the Literatii, the ornament of which learned body is the Rev. Dr. King, of Ennis College, a gentleman by birth, by principles, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... rule over princes (i.e. godly men, highly privileged by God). All things that are good do ill become them, but worst of all to have power and superiority over good men, ver. 25, joined with chap. xxi. 11. Ringleaders of wickedness, refractory and incorrigible persons, should have been made examples to others, and this would have prevented much mischief. The scripture gives ground for putting difference between the scorner and simple, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... semi-liberalism, he found means to get indicted again and to undergo a new condemnation, by attacks which some even of his friends then thought untimely. Once again Beranger was impassioned; he declared his enemies incurable and incorrigible; and soon came the ordinances of July, 1830, and the Revolution in their train, to prove ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... rendered such design unprogressive. Perfect in its peculiar manner, and exulting in the faultless practice of a narrow skill, it remained century after century incapable alike of inner growth, or foreign instruction; inimitable, yet incorrigible; marvellous, yet despicable, to its death. Despicable, I mean, only in the limitation of its capacity, not in its quality or nature. If you make a Christian of a lamb or a squirrel—what can you expect of the lamb but jumping—what of the squirrel, ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... get her moved out of Grumble Street and into Thanksgiving Alley," he said, "it'll be a privilege for this village; but you can't do it, Anne. However, there's no use talking to you, you incorrigible optimist. You're the worst case I ever saw, Anne Peace, and I haven't the smallest hope of curing you. Put the liniment on her leg as I told you, and I'll call ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... Dorriforth frequently perplexed in the management of his ward, and he himself thinking her incorrigible, gave his counsel, that a suitable match should be immediately sought out for her, and the care of so dangerous a person given into other hands. Dorriforth acknowledged the propriety of this advice, but lamented the difficulty of pleasing his ward as ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... pilgrims in the act of penance, although it... in many instances obtained them protection from the governments of the countries through which they travelled, was afterwards totally disbelieved, and they were considered as incorrigible rogues and vagrants.... A curious and accurate account of their arrival in France is quoted by Pasquier "On August 27th, 1427, came to Paris twelve penitents,... viz. a duke, an earl, and ten men, all on horseback, and calling themselves ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... you incorrigible spinner of tales!" reproached Mrs. Carew, with a nervous laugh. "This is no ten-penny novel. It's real life. She's too young for him. He ought to marry a woman, not a girl—that is, if he marries any one, I mean," she stammeringly ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... for the last time, and left the room. As he mounted his hackney, I could not help overhearing an abortive effort he made to draw Mike into something like conversation; but it proved an utter failure, and it was evident he deemed the man as incorrigible as the master. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... herself, thou incorrigible intermeddler in what concerns thee not, that it is her wish the ceremony should go on—Is it not, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... have me say, my dear Glenarvan? I am mad, I am an idiot, an incorrigible fellow, and I shall live and die the most terrible absent man. I ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... to be able to contemplate the financial blunders by which Germany is so greatly increasing the difficulties that it will have to face before the war is over. On the other hand, we have to recognise that the Chancellor, with that incorrigible optimism of his, has committed the common but serious error of over-stating his case by leaving out factors which are in Germany's favour, as, for instance, that Germany's debt is to a larger extent than ours held at home. Since the war began ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... most beautifully. He was very inoffensive, perfectly innocent, and never ruffled in temper, except when the wicked youngsters played tricks with him while he was composing his sermon. One day he was much alarmed by the following adventure, got up expressly by the mids. Some of these incorrigible fellows, among whom I blush to acknowledge I was one, had laid a train of gunpowder to a devil close to his cabin, whilst they presumed he was very busy writing for their edification. The train was fired from the cockpit ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... irreverent saying, "An entire Brahmin at the Agragrama, half a Brahmin when seen at a distance, and a Soodra when out of sight"; but then the Soodras, as everybody knows, are saucy, satirical rogues, and incorrigible jokers. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... "You are incorrigible, Bathurst. Miss Hannay, I warn you that this man is a monomaniac. I drag him away from his work, and here he is discoursing with you on reform just as a race is going to start. You may imagine, my dear, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... an incorrigible joker. The poor fellow died nearly a week ago. Of course I must attend his funeral to-morrow down at Hitchin; I really couldn't neglect to attend his funeral. And here comes my difficulty. At present I'm driving ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... been incorrigible, and had insisted on intruding his clumsy person upon Lady Fareham's party, arguing with a dull persistence that his name was on her ladyship's billet ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... incorrigible with his confounded nonsense," observed the captain to the first lieutenant. "Every mast in the ship would go over the side, provided he could get any one to ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... although many men of many minds met constantly at our conferences, it was amazing to find the incorrigible good nature which prevailed. Radicals are accustomed to hot discussion and sharp differences of opinion and take it all in the day's work. I recall that the secretary of the Hull-House Social Science Club at ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... Chicago last Wednesday night, but felt so miserable I concluded to enter a hospital again, and so came to Mercy, which is very good as hospitals go. But I might as well go to Hades as far as any hope of my getting well is concerned. I am utterly incorrigible, utterly incurable, and utterly impossible. At home I thought for a time that I was cured, but I was mistaken, and after seeing Clifford last Thursday I have grown worse than ever so far as my passion for him is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... by it in his conception of his own personality, and in all his actions. Parents must believe in his inherent virtue in spite of all lapses. If they despair it cannot be hid from the child. He knows it intuitively and despairs also. It is then that they call him incorrigible. If it happens that one parent becomes estranged from the child, despairs of all improvement, and sees in all his conduct the natural result of an inborn disposition to evil, while the other parent holds to the opinion that the child's nature is good, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... laughed the Duc de Puysange, "I assure you I am quite incorrigible. I have just committed another abominable action; and I cry peccavi!" He smote himself upon the breast, and sighed portentously. "I accuse myself ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell |
