"Coolheaded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interest and honors, and I could not extinguish it at once. I was more than two hours in solitude under this painful conflict. At length I yielded, not because I saw any reasonable prospect of success in my new undertaking,—for all cool-headed and cool-hearted men would have pronounced against it,—but in obedience, I believe, to a higher Power. And I can say, that both on the moment of this resolution and for some time afterwards, I had more sublime ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... by this sudden outburst on the part of a man whom up to that time he had taken to be unusually cool-headed and phlegmatic, did not immediately answer. He was watching the Ellersdeane constable, who was running after Gabriel Chestermarke's rapidly retreating figure. He saw Gabriel stop, listen to an evident question, ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... his compositions should not please. They were immature. They were, secondly, too advanced to be understood at once. And, lastly, people were only too glad to give a lesson to the impertinent youngster.—But Christophe was not cool-headed enough to admit that his reverse was legitimate. He had none of that serenity which the true artist gains from the mournful experience of long misunderstanding at the hands of men and their incurable stupidity. His naive confidence in the public and in success ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... I was cool-headed, and accustomed to this species of adventure, or I should never have been there. Yet, I confess my nerves tingled as I crept cautiously forward through the fringe of bushes, seeking the exact spot where the major had disappeared down what must ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... a mere piece of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just one would have been inflexible in a matter of life and death. But this man's facile yielding and his stiff-necked ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... hands and clammy forehead, I laughed with deep irritation. I said then to myself that the ignorant could hardly be blamed for even the wildest superstitions, when a cool-headed and enlightened modern like myself was so wrought upon by the fictions of his brain. I philosophized for some time, however, before I got the better of my repugnance to that doorway. I humorously assured myself that, at the worst, this incomprehensible beast was securely anchored to ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the disgust of the panic-stricken men and the cool-headed engineer nodded to the President, pulled his lever and the locomotive shot out of the station and in five minutes Davis alighted with his staff near the battle field. By the guidance of stragglers ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the actual state of the public mind; it was only to carry out the doctrine of the sway of the majority to a practical result; and this was so cleverly done as actually to put the balance of power in the hands of the minority. There is nothing new in this, however, as any cool-headed man may see in this enlightened republic of our own, daily examples in which the majority-principle works purely for the aggrandizement of a minority clique. It makes very little difference how men are ruled; they will be cheated; for, failing of rogues at head-quarters ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... are men, you know, whose one grand passion in life is for themselves. But Alice knows that Brandt still cares for her, and she feeds her romantic fancy on this fact, and has her introspective miseries to her heart's content. She is far too cool-headed a woman to do anything rash. Sometimes I think her morbid nature obtains more real satisfaction out of her joyless situation than positive happiness would compensate her for. She appears to take a certain negative pleasure in it. Their marriage is the product ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... a pretty cool-headed girl; nor was this the first time she had been in an accident of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... limit," commented Jack, taking the cigar out of his mouth; "he must be a cool-headed scoundrel. I ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... was too slow for business men, and in 1860 the stage company started the Pony Express to carry letters on horseback from St. Joseph to San Francisco. Mounted on a swift pony, the rider, a brave, cool-headed, picked man, would gallop at breakneck speed to the first relay station, jump on the back of another pony and speed away to the second, mount a fresh horse and be off for a third. At the third station he would find a fresh ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... to her feet with an angry flush in her face, exclaiming: "Insolent fellow, I am the Princess Mary; if you have a message, deliver it and be gone." You may be sure this sort of treatment was such as the cool-headed, daring Brandon would repay with usury; so, turning upon his heel and almost presenting his back to Mary, he spoke to ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... independent republics without emerging from its traditional isolation? President Monroe would have been glad to recognize the South American republics even before they had demonstrated their ability to maintain their independence; but his cool-headed Secretary of State prevailed upon him to await further evidence. It was not until 1822, indeed, that the President recommended to Congress the establishment of missions in the new republics of South America. Spain protested emphatically against this ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... or, perhaps, according to the common belief, his evil genius had so decreed, that Nigel's adventures were remarkably successful. He was temperate, cautious, cool-headed, had a strong memory, and a ready power of calculation; was besides, of a daring and intrepid character, one upon whom no one that had looked even slightly, or spoken to though but hastily, would readily have ventured to practise any ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Crummles, taking off his outlaw's wig, the better to arrive at a cool-headed view of the whole case. 'Let me see. This is Wednesday night. We'll have posters out the first thing in the morning, announcing positively ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... surprised, but they were cool-headed old soldiers, who were not to be scared by a surprise. They quickly formed a line on the bank, and, bringing up some cannon, gave battle to ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... violence. Each baron made war on his neighbour, and, as usual, the peasant suffered most. Robert's own life was vicious and wasteful, and he was soon in debt. He sold the Cotentin and the territory of Avranches to his youngest brother, Henry. Henry was cool-headed and prudent, and he kept order in his new possession better than either of his elder brothers would have done. The brothers coveted the well-ordered land, and in 1091, two years before Anselm became archbishop, they marched together against Henry. Henry was besieged on St. Michael's Mount, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... unpopularity, bitter hatred, and worse. Fortunately, on certain occasions, Vanrevel had made himself (if not his creed) respected, at least so far that there was no longer danger of mob-violence for an Abolitionist in Rouen. He was a cool-headed young man ordinarily, and possessed of an elusive forcefulness not to be trifled with, though he was a quiet man, and had what they called a "fine manner." And, not in the latter, but in his dress, there was an echo of the Beau, which afforded Mr. Gray a point of attack for sallies ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... a house in it but has its secrets of large or small operations undertaken on account of the firm. The practice of buying and selling on commission is unquestionably the safest, but the mania for wealth leads many clear, cool-headed men into the feverish whirl of speculation, and keeps them there until they have realized their wildest ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... you are somewhat hasty and unjust in your criticism, Mr. Morgan," the judge mildly protested. "I know the marshal to be a cool-headed man, a man who can see perils that you and I might overlook until too late for our own preservation. The fellow must have made some break for his gun that you ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... "skedaddle," as it was the fashion to call it, he frankly admitted, in his official report, began among the men of his brigade, and the "disorderly retreat" speedily became a humiliating rout, which only a few cool-headed officers, such as Colonel Sherman, could check ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... yit," suggested the practical minded hunchback. "Some few wild fellers on both sides of ther line air apt ter try out how strong we be ter enfo'ce our compact. Hit's kinderly like young colts plungin' ergainst a new hand on ther bridle-rein—we've got ter keep cool-headed an' patient an' ack tergether when a feller like thet ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... It was the cool-headed Mortimer who organised the defence, for Scott's Celtic soul was so aflame at all this "copy" in hand and more to come that he was too exuberantly boisterous for a commander. The other, with his spectacles and his stern face, soon had the servants in hand. "Tali henna! Egri! What the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... leave it at that. One of us went to the captain, and he got from Captain von Mueller an assurance that we had done nothing of the kind, and that he intended to assemble his officers and tell them so." Note how readily on the other side, amongst those less responsible or less cool-headed, a tale may grow up against us. Let us observe in considering tales against them the same caution that we should wish them to exercise in considering ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... could only have made her feel all the greatness that lies in devotion, then I should have seen her perfected, she would have been an angel. I loved her as a man, a lover, and an artist; if it had been necessary not to love her so that I might win her, some cool-headed coxcomb, some self-possessed calculator would perhaps have had an advantage over me. She was so vain and sophisticated, that the language of vanity would appeal to her; she would have allowed herself to be ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... meeting that afternoon the project went through without a dissenting voice. Colonel Tom being absent, the two employe directors voted with Sam with almost panicky haste as Sam looking across at the well-dressed, cool-headed Webster, laughed and lighted a fresh cigar. And then he voted the stock Sue had intrusted to him for the project, feeling that in doing so he was cutting, perhaps for all time, ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... of inflicting pain on those perverse little toddlers who grow so slowly into the knowledge of what is right and wrong. It hurts me like Sam-Hill, sometimes, to have to hurt my little man-child. When the inevitable and slow-accumulating spanking does come, I try to be cool-headed and strictly just about it—for one look out of a child's eyes has the trick of bringing you suddenly to the judgment-bar. Dinkie, young as he is, can already appraise and arraign me and flash back his recognition of injustice. More than once he's made me think ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... try to solve many social and industrial problems, requiring to an especial degree the combination of indomitable resolution with cool-headed sanity. We can profit by the way in which Lincoln used both these traits as he strove for reform. We can learn much of value from the very attacks which following that course brought upon his head, attacks alike by the extremists of ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... senators who had conscientiously differed from the main body of their political associates. While, however, the majority of Republicans shared in the chagrin caused by the defeat of Impeachment, a large and increasing number of the cool-headed and more conservative members of the party rejoiced at the result as a fortunate exit from an indefensible position, which had been taken in the heat of just resentment against the President for his desertion of those important principles of public policy to which he had ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... with her, and seeing the strange object to which the burgomaster's wife pointed, recoiled a step himself. But the cool-headed man quickly perceived the real nature of the ghostly apparition, and leading Maria ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Even the most cool-headed lost his self-control in this terrible emergency. Every kind of device that experience or the imagination could suggest was tried, but nothing would do. Still on we rushed with the electrified atoms composing the tail of the comet sweeping to and fro over the members of the squadron, ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... sexual passions, like the others, always tend to falsify memory, making things appear in the exclusive sense of the affective state. Once fixed in the memory, such conceptions, the false tendency of which was originally based on passion, gradually assume the subjective character of certainty. Cool-headed people, or those whose affective state directs them to contrary conceptions, then see in such individuals a deliberate intention to misrepresent the facts. This is the reason why people so often hurl mutual insults at each others heads, calling ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... before there was any actual outbreak. As Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson so graphically expresses it, the surrender of Canada to England by France in 1763 suddenly opened men's eyes to the fact that British America had become a country so large as to make England seem ridiculously small. Even the cool-headed Dr. Franklin, writing that same year to Mary Stevenson in London, spoke of England as "that stone in a brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one's shoes dry." A far-seeing French statesman of the period looked at the matter in the same way. Choiseul, the Prime Minister who ceded Canada, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... about town of ghost-seeing vouched by Lord Prudhoe, a near relation of the Duke of Northumberland, and whom I know as an honourable man. A colonel described as a cool-headed sensible man of worth and honour, Palgrave, who dined with us yesterday, told us twice over the story as vouched by Lord Prudhoe, and Lockhart gave us Colonel Felix's edition, which coincided exactly. I will endeavour to extract the essence of both. While at Grand Cairo ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... inimitable as the battle cry of freedom and progress; there was Washington, whose military genius, indomitable will, and noble solidity of character were able to carry the war through to the end; and there was Franklin, too cool-headed ever to have inflamed the hearts of the people with the inspiration of hope and revenge, incapable of uttering political platitudes which could express tersely the national feeling, a lover of peace and without the grim determination of a soldier, but still able in his own way to serve ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... wrote this, was adapted to intellectual pursuits,—a man of fine powers of mind, but not fully progressed in thought. As far as he knew, at the time of this writing, he was appreciative of your suggestions, and of scientific progress. He was a cool-headed man,—not a light or superficial thinker, but thought on deep subjects. He was a brain worker; it makes my brain tired. I think he published books—poems. I think he was more a poet than a prose writer. He was not like Tom Moore—there was nothing light or ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... Nelson's day; big, rough, and simple, honest to the core, slow to anger, but terrible when roused—a true heart of oak, a man with massive, slow-moving, but immensely efficient, "governing" brain. A born commander, utterly without fear, yet always cool-headed and never rash. If there are more Englishmen like him, I don't think you will find them in London or anywhere in the British Isles. You must go for them to the British colonies. There, rather than at home, ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... indifferent to beauty? Who shall answer that question? Yet on the answer depends peace. Men may have a mint of sterling qualities—be vigorous, adventurous, brave, upright, and self-sacrificing; be preachers and teachers; keen, cool-headed, just, industrious—if they have not the love of beauty, they will still be making wars. Man is a fighting animal, with sense of the ridiculous enough to know that he is a fool to fight, but not sense of the sublime enough to stop him. Ah, well! ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... action. She had regained her wits and was cool-headed as usual. Margery clung to her and screamed and she shook her and ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... incursion of scraps of disconnected experience. This condition of mind made her an almost insoluble psychological problem. Since she was evidently a woman of pronounced character, her bewilderment and tentative attitude were not allowed for. Her actions were regarded as deliberate and cool-headed, when often they would be the outcome of sheer confusion, or chance, or perhaps of a groping ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... which he was placed when very young, rather than by anything like the self-development which we hear of in the lives of great men. From a somewhat foolish and affectedly cynical youth he has grown into a decidedly hard and cool-headed man. He is very much seen in society but talks little on the whole. If, hereafter, there should be anything in his life worth recording, another hand than mine may write it ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... darkness, they opened upon her with their batteries from both shores, and she was subjected to a fire which it would seem must riddle her like a sieve and kill every man. But under the direction of the cool-headed and daring Lieutenant the collier was swung into the right position, and, but for the shooting away of the rudder, would have been sunk directly across the channel, which would have been effectively blocked. The position of the ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... and stiff. To those who received if not to those who taught these doctrines they seemed alike lifeless, unless translated into the terms of the merest earthly transactions or the language of purely human relations. And thus, paradoxical as it might seem, cool-headed and conscientious rulers of the Church thought themselves on occasion called upon to restrain rather than to stimulate the religious ardour of the multitude—fed as the flame was by very various materials. Perhaps no more characteristic narrative has come down to us from the age of the ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... time since than have I missed his cool-headed judgment, his cheering words and his sound advice, and I have no hesitation in saying to-day that to him the ball players owe even now a debt of gratitude that ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... flushed. For a week he had been in close confinement, and that and a complication of annoyances and worries had combined to make him fretful; then some grave anxieties were added to his troubles; and then, his quick, impetuous nature had done the rest. He had no cool-headed adviser in Blake, who had taken up the fight with him, and now he was involved in an official tussle with the post authorities that added greatly to his fevered condition. He was sore in body, for the wound in his thigh was now beginning to trouble him ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... rational, sound, in one's right mind, sensible, abnormis sapiens [Lat.], judicious, strong- minded. unprejudiced, unbiased, unbigoted^, unprepossessed^; undazzled^, unperplexed^; unwarped judgment^, impartial, equitable, fair. cool; cool-headed, long-headed, hardheaded, strong-headed; long- sighted, calculating, thoughtful, reflecting; solid, deep, profound. oracular; heaven-directed, heaven-born. prudent &c (cautious) 864; sober, stand, solid; considerate, politic, wise in one's generation; watchful &c 459; provident &c (prepared) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away with a smile from the man who should have been her moral support in this heart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should have been her cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment tossed her hither and thither, between her love for her brother, who was far away and in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which Chauvelin had exacted from her, in exchange for ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... marked them as lambs for the fleecing. It was not the courage of his big chief so much that had filled Cameron with amazed respect and admiration as the calm indifference to every consideration but that of getting his men out of harm's way, and the cool-headed directness of the method ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... cry was raised that the enemy was in sight; and the confusion that prevailed before became redoubled as the necessity for instant action arose. In the midst of it, however, a few among the more sedate and cool-headed leaders did their best to reduce the little army to something like order, and put it in battle array. There was no lack of personal courage. Men who had, for the sake of righteousness, suffered the loss of all things, and had carried their lives in their hands for so many ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... the picture. The other side was that the crisis at once brought to the front any amount of latent fighting strength. There were plenty of Congressmen who showed cool-headed wisdom and resolution. The plain people, the men and women back of the persons who lost their heads, set seriously to work to see that we did whatever was necessary, and made the job a thorough one. The young men swarmed to enlist. In time of peace it had been ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... base my arguments on sober, cool-headed reason; and there's nothing that can withstand reason. The thing's impossible and, therefore, it has never happened. I went over to your place, sir, when I heard of the accident, for the misfortunes of my neighbors interest me, no matter what may be my opinion of them, ...
— My Terminal Moraine - 1892 • Frank E. Stockton
... early in its career, and had remained unimportant until a railway accident occurred at Manitou and the resident doctors were driven from the field of battle, one by death, and one by illness. Then it was that the silent, smiling, dark-skinned, cool-headed and cool-handed Rockwell stepped in, and won for himself the gratitude of all—from Monseigneur Lourde, the beloved Catholic priest, to Tekewani, the chief. This accident was followed by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... English at the expense of not being British."[41] But other journals and politicians were not content with the half-way house of independence, and the majority of those who signed the first annexation manifesto belonged to the Tory party.[42] John {336} A. Macdonald, who was shrewd and cool-headed enough to refuse to sign the manifesto, admitted that "our fellows lost their heads"; but he cannot be allowed to claim credit for having advocated the formation of another organization, the British-American League, ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... known to be a good hater. His father before him, it was said, had had dealings with the Bourbons, while many a great family of the Emigration would have lost more than the esteem of their fellows in their panic-stricken flight, had it not been that one cool-headed and calm man of business stayed at his post through the topsy-turvy days of the Terror, and did his duty by the clients ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... fault she could not return it. But, poor and shamed as she was, he knew that she would despise him if he yielded now, even though he rose to be the foremost man of the nation. Not with any chivalric, uncalculating impulse did he reach his conclusion, but by the slow, deliberate reasoning of a cool-headed, sturdy race that would hold to a course with life-long tenacity, having ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... cool-headed Halloran, whom the other had always dubbed half man, half fiend—who stole up to the room above, found the girl lying in the exact spot his companion had described, and, catching up her cloak, wrapped it about her, bore her noiselessly ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... and there, sure enough, the land was visible through the drizzle, at the distance of about half a mile, the cutter heading directly towards it. The first impulse of the old seaman was to give an order to "stand by, to ware off shore;" but the cool-headed soldier restrained him. ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... to save our skins," said the cool-headed Captain Wellsby, "but 'tis a desperate business to attack yon cut-throats, even by night, and there will be men of us hurt and killed. Blackbeard's gold is ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Engineman Newman, driving locomotive number 385 at nearer one hundred miles an hour than it had ever gone before, heard the sharp reports above the rattling roar of his train, and realized their dread significance. It was a close call, and only cool-headed promptness could have checked the tremendous speed of that on-rushing train in the few seconds allowed for the purpose. As it was, 385's paint was blistering in the intense heat from the oil flames as it ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... whatever he chooses to offer them as the very meat and wine of the mind. But surely one does not need to urge very emphatically that popularity won upon such easy terms would be demoralizing to any but very highly gifted and very cool-headed men. The American people are absolutely right in insisting that an aspirant for popular eminence shall be compelled to make himself interesting to them, and shall not be welcomed as a fountain of excellence and enlightenment until he has found some means of forcing his meat and his ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... character than either of them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are themselves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always imbued. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... ourselves to and we expect the great catastrophe to surprise and overwhelm. Nevertheless, we judge people by the way they react to the unexpected; the man who rallies quickly from the confusion of surprise is, we say, "cool-headed," keeps his wits about him; and the man who does not so rally or adjust "loses his head,"—"loses his wits." Part of this cool-headedness is not only the rallying from surprise but also the throwing off of fear. A warning has for its purpose, "Don't be surprised!" ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... indicate plainly enough the kind of man who was soon to make himself heard in a more important question. Instead of a frothy and excitable harangue that might have been looked for in a warm-blooded Southern orator we find a dignified and apparently cool-headed type of speech based on sound sense, full of practical proposals, fearless, manly and above all noble because it relies on righteousness. An intelligence of no mean order has in each case discarded personal feeling and has pointed out the one bed-rock fact which ought to be the foundation ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... his skill. His first onslaught, a trick thrust under my guard, caused me to give back a step or two, and this small success yielded him the over-confidence I always prefer that an opponent have. I was young, agile, cool-headed, instructed since early boyhood by my father, a rather famous swordsman, in the mysteries of the game, yet I preferred that Grant should deem me a novice. With this in mind, and in order that I might better study the man's style, I remained strictly on defence, giving way slightly ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... and refinement, if he fail in doing what he wishes, may indeed be dull, but will not be absurd and offensive. But however this may be, it is curious that this impassioned and highly oratorical school of preaching should be found among a cautious, cool-headed race like the Scotch. The Scotch are proverbial for long heads, and no great capacity of emotion. Sir Walter Scott, in Rob Roy, in describing the preacher whom the hero heard in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral, says that his countrymen are much more accessible ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... from Arabian as she had never yet shrunk from a human being. But something else was fascinated by him. She had the American woman's outlook on men. She expected men to hold their own in the world with other men, to be self-possessed, cool-headed, and bold in their careers, but to be subservient in their relations with women. To be ruled by a husband would have seemed to her to be quite unnatural, to rule him quite natural. She felt sure that ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... all versed in the Indian character will doubt the implicit faith with which this legend was told and heard. But we may be pardoned our scepticism, seeing there are so many chances of error. It is not so with an anecdote related by Captain Jonathan Carver, a cool-headed English trader, whose little book of travels is an unquestioned authority. In 1767, he was among the Killistenoes at a time when they were in great straits for food, and depending upon the arrival of the traders ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... what you can do," said Lennox, "and trust to the cool-headed man as your leader. You'll be right enough in ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... governed by the same rule of morality as that which should govern individual conduct; it is impossible that it should be so. Professor Saintsbury says: "Every cool-headed student of history and ethics will admit that it was precisely the abuse of the principle at this time, and by the persons of whom Catherine de' Medici, if not the most blamable, has had the most blame put on her, that brought the principle ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Byron, his ancestry must be much considered. It will never do to compare him with cool-headed, calm-blooded, matter-of-fact people. He was the peculiar product of a peculiar race. Coming through generations of hot, turbulent blood, which was never once mastered or tamed by its possessors, he entered the ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... would have it, the sky clouded over, and Guynemer had to dive down to his opponent's level, so as to show him only the thin edges of the planes, hardly visible. But by this time the German had noticed him, and was endeavoring to get his range. Prudence advised zigzagging, for a cool-headed gunner has every chance of hitting a straight-flying airplane; the enemy ought to be made to shift his aim by quick tacking, and the attack should be made from above with a full volley, with the ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... morning he was himself again, sure and cool-headed and cool-hearted. He did not believe that he had suffered or in the ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... a dismal chasm of great depth went off here at a sharp angle; and some little distance down one of its rugged walls he pointed out a dark opening which seemed unapproachable at first, though a little further examination showed that it was quite possible for a cool-headed man to get down—one who would not think of the ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... you thrusting it into everybody's face. Of course you are willing to suffer for your doctrines, and even to die for them if need be, but that is the way with all fanatics. Your foolish notions give occasion for amusement to cool-headed free thinkers, who see perfectly well that they are all the result of self-delusion. I believe in keeping perfectly cool; in always keeping the head as high above the heart as it is in the body. I don't believe in attacking a man from behind while he is engaged by another ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression. They were invented for this one good purpose, that what was not just should not be convenient. Convinced of this, I would leave things as I found them. The old, cool-headed, general law is as good as any deviation dictated ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... welcoming me, her best beloved Cesare, back to Naples? She certainly deserved some credit for artistic lying; I could not understand how she managed it so well. Almost I admired her skill, as one sometimes admires a cool-headed burglar, who has more skill, cunning, and pluck than his comrades. I thought with triumph that though the wording of Ferrari's will enabled her to secure all other letters she might have written to him, this one little packet of documentary evidence ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... have insulted, and to whose family you intend dishonour, you have lost a sagacious, artful, and cool-headed instrument and adherent," said ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a good example of a solitary hallucination in the experience of a very cool-headed observer. The causes of such experiences are still a mystery to science. Even people who believe in "mental telegraphy," say when a distant person, at death or in any other crisis, impresses himself ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... about which no trustworthy information was to be found in books. Looking at Slavery merely as an economist, with no political or moral prepossessions to mislead his judgment, he went to study for himself its workings and results as a form of labor, we might almost say, so cool-headed is he, as an application of forces, rather than as a social or political phenomenon. Self-possessed and wary, almost provokingly unsympathetic in his report of what he saw, pronouncing no judgment on isolated facts, and drawing no undue inferences from them, he has now generalized his results in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Donald MacElrath, farmer's son and farm-boy himself, had shifted from the soil he loved to the sea he hated and which it was his destiny to farm. And farmed it he had, for twenty years, shrewd, cool-headed, sober, industrious, and thrifty, rising from ship's boy and forecastle hand to mate and master of sailing-ships and thence into steam, second officer, first, and master, from small command to larger, ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... younger, is not so steady and cool-headed as Lourenco. Yet he is a most capable man, and the two together—they are always ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... of my knowledge is so strangely blended as this genius of Salvation Army organisation. For although he is first and foremost a calm statesman of religious fervour, cool-headed, clear-eyed, and deliberative, a man profoundly inspired by hatred of evil, yet there are moments in his life of almost superhuman energy when the whole structure of his mind seems to give way, and the spirit ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Lathrop's wanted on the phone. It's long distance, too, and—and—you've got to scrabble 'cause they're holdin' the wire." Mary hurried out and to the telephone office. She had not answered Shadrach's question as to who she thought was calling. She did not know, of course, but she suspected, and for a cool-headed young business woman, a girl who had ruthlessly driven all thoughts except those of business from her mind, her heart beat surprisingly fast as she entered the closet which acted as a substitute for a telephone booth, and took down the receiver. Yet her tone was calm enough as she uttered ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... overruling care of the All Father. Perhaps the belief is so nearly universal as to be without the range of debate so dear to creed makers. Yet at all times, in all lands, man, whether the savage, the oriental mystic, or the cool-headed Christian, in various ways and with different phrases, has recognized the hand that, from behind the scenes, touched his affairs and often seemed to order his life. Whether it be the hand of force or of friend, ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... was about as flustered as Amos. We knew in reason that Brother Gyardner was makin' a big mistake, but we jest stood there and let things go on, and no tellin' what might 'a' happened if it hadn't been for Sam Amos. Sam was a cool-headed man, and nothin' ever flustered him. As soon as he saw how things was goin' he set down on the bank and pulled off his boots; and jest as Brother Gyardner got into the middle o' the creek, here come Sam wadin' up behind 'em, and grabbed Amos by the shoulder and hollered out, 'You got the ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... though my brain snapped back into ascendency. I was no longer a raging fury, mad with the desire to kill, but cool-headed, planning escape. Before a hand could reach me in restraint, I sprang backward and ran. In the darkness of the cabin I collided with the table, and fell sprawling over a stool. The noise guided pursuit, yet, wedged together ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... its own purposes, but to prevent the downfall of the present British Ministry, and a probable radical change in the Government. That such a political revolution, as undesirable to the Syndicate as to cool-headed and sensible Englishmen, was imminent, there could be no doubt. The growing feeling of disaffection, almost amounting to disloyalty, not only in the opposition party, but among those who had hitherto been firm adherents of the Government, was mainly based upon the ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... unaccountable appearance of Deronda at Genoa of all places, immediately tried to conceive how there could have been an arrangement between him and Gwendolen. It is true that before they were well in their rooms, he had seen how difficult it was to shape such an arrangement with any probability, being too cool-headed to find it at once easily credible that Gwendolen had not only while in London hastened to inform Deronda of the yachting project, but had posted a letter to him from Marseilles or Barcelona, advising him to travel to Genoa in time for the chance of meeting her ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... him to command the fleet he meant to send to follow up this discovery. In the ten years that elapsed before he actually sailed, it is probable that he had grown to be not only a better geographer, but also a stronger, more cool-headed, and reliable man. That he was able to command, those mutineers who cavilled at his severity during the stormy passage of four months from Lisbon to Table Bay, found out when they demanded that he give up trying to reach India and return to Portugal as other ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... convincing testimony from outsiders concerning the reasonableness and practicableness of his aims and hopes. In giving some interesting and striking illustrations by way of proof that he is no visionary, but a cool-headed, hard-working calculator who well knows that the capital he is working with will yield a high percentage, we may have to tell of what is in ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... at her in his kindly, lordly way, telling her with frank brutalness that the woman who was not beautiful had missed her vocation in life; of that scheming, conquering young gentleman himself, who at twenty-five had already made his mark in the City, shrewd, clever, cool-headed as a fox, except where a pretty face and shapely hand or ankle were concerned; of Nellie Fanshawe, then in the pride of her ravishing beauty, who loved none but herself, whose clay-made gods were jewels, and fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy ...
— The Philosopher's Joke • Jerome K. Jerome
... each week, Mr. Punch, you impress With your cool-headed wit and ability, So I wonder you've not had the gumption to guess There's method in our imbecility; Read on, and your premature chiding deplore, For our merciful mission, in brief, Is to brighten the tragical drama of war By providing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... And as Mr. Paulo was a cool-headed, clear-sighted man, perplexity was an unusual thing with him, and it annoyed him. The cause of his perplexity was connected almost entirely with the ex-Dictator of Gloria. Ericson had still kept his rooms ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... ignorance is correct. The truth is that we have often very scanty evidence. If we take Athens in her lustre, we are, undeniably, in an age of enlightenment, of the Aufklarung. No rationalistic, philosophical, cool-headed contemporary of Middleton, of Hume, of Voltaire, could speak more contemptuously about ghosts, and about the immortality of the soul, than some of the Athenian gentlemen who converse with Socrates in the Dialogues. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... like to see a somewhat different spirit introduced, and to be assured that I could always rely on the presence of at least one cool-headed officer at the Palace. Your experience on the frontier has eminently fitted you for the position. To you, therefore, will be allotted the quarters reserved in the Palace itself for the adjutant of the Guard. May I have the pleasure of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... the maidens thither and ridden away. Perhaps the marauders had been lurking somewhere about awaiting the opportunity. They must know that they could not hold it after the friends of the rightful lord knew what had been done, and their leader was too cool-headed a man to have attempted so bold a raid without some important reason. The abduction of four young girls, two of whom at least were heiresses, might seem such a reason to such a man. Evidently he did not suspect Ranulph's character as a man of some reputation and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... ostrich-sized creatures at earliest dawn. A cooler-headed man would have stood still and killed some of them, then the rest would either have run away or devoured their slaughtered fellows. But Johnny Simms was not cool-headed. He had made a career of being a rich man's spoiled little boy. Now he'd had a fright great enough and an escape narrow enough to shatter the nerves of a normal man. To Johnny Simms, the effect ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... necessary, and no man is wise enough to tell in advance whether they may prove to be necessary or not. The surest way to reach results is the way Sherman adopted. In either a civil or foreign war, such methods may be very bad policy; but very few men are cool-headed enough in civil war, even if wise enough, to see what good policy dictates, and this is even more true of men at a distance than of those at the front. Men who have been fighting most of the time for three ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... their women, and his prejudices took the alarm. But his love was much the strongest, and soon looked down the distrust, however reasonable, under the circumstances, the latter might have appeared to a disinterested and cool-headed observer. He had seen so much meek and pure-spirited self-denial; so much high principle in the conduct of Mademoiselle Hennequin, during an intimacy which had now lasted six months, that no passing feeling of doubt, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... the cool-headed Damayanti, seeing the righteous king maddened and deprived of his senses at dice, was filled, O king, with alarm and grief. And she thought the affair to be a serious one with the king. And apprehensive of the calamity that ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... adventure that Thora proposed was no small one, for the North Gaulton cliffs are amongst the wildest and most rugged in all Pomona, and they are very steep and dangerous to the climber. Yet Thora was a cool-headed girl, strong of foot and wrist, and very adventurous. I remember on one occasion, when several of us were bird nesting together on the Black Craigs, she happened to get stranded on a corner of rock, and could not either return ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... a most cool-headed cuss, snatched for his gun where he'd dropped it, to make sure she got it ahead of me. She snatched, yes—and then jerked back, letting off a sizable squeal ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... readers the Rover boys, Sam, Tom, and Dick, need no special introduction. Sam was the youngest, fun-loving Tom next, and cool-headed and clever Dick ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... feinting at their left and striking at their right at Tannenberg with a force of armoured cars, cavalry, and infantry conveyed in motors. Neither of these movements could have been achieved before the advent of motor transport. As this war progresses, the need for really capable and cool-headed motor drivers will steadily increase. But it will be none the less invaluable to know how to manage a horse—whether to ride it, drive a wagon, or ride-and-drive in a limber. One of our limber horses is a grey captured from the Germans last year. He is a very good worker ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... great deal, and there was no blinking it, not only because Rudolf was right and enjoyed the best of reputations, but also because he was known to be the best shot and swordsman in the place, and cool-headed and lucky ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... unpleasant news, just control yourself and receive it without any exclamation of surprise. Say to yourself, "Nothing is going to cause me to lose my self-control. You will find from experience that this self-control will be worth much to you in business. You will be looked upon as a cool-headed business man, and this in time becomes a valuable business asset. Of course, circumstances alter cases. At times it is necessary to become enthused. But be ever on the lookout for opportunities for the practice of self-control. ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... established with myself, on these occasions, the reputation of a first-rate man of business,—prompt, decisive, energetic, clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities down upon my list, I compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My self-approval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious sensation. When I had no more ticks to make, I folded ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... ever been by him before, but the Good Book was as unresponsive as the legal tome. "Remember your own wedding ceremony," was our advice "Follow that as nearly as possible." But he shook his head despondently The cool-headed scout and Indian fighter was dismayed, and the dignity of the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... words were the words of wisdom, but when did a lover—even a tolerably cool-headed lover like Eugene—ever listen to the words of wisdom? He went to bed in a bad temper. Then in the morning came Stafford's letter, and of course Eugene had no kind of doubt as to the meaning of it. Now, it had been all very well to be magnanimous ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... holding the bundle in silence while all hands set to rigging up her dressing-room. She felt suddenly cool-headed and resourceful. Her mind was forced away from her own sorrow to the solution of another heavy problem. In the little blanket tent she unrolled the bundle and smiled tenderly at the evidence of Katherine's thoughtfulness. There were underwear, handkerchiefs, ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... a decided contrast to Defoe, whose men and women are almost never startled out of their matter-of-fact attitude. His picaresque characters, though outwardly rogues or their female counterparts, have at bottom something of the dissenting parson and cool-headed, middle-aged man of business. Whatever else they may be, they are never love-sick. Passion is to them a questionable asset, and if they marry, they are like to have the matter over with in the course of half a paragraph. Eliza Haywood, however, possessed in excess the one ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher |
