"Flippantly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... feel very keenly what I am about to say. The committee feels that Mr. McGowan holds ideas that are too far advanced for our humble little church. We must not overlook the fact that we hold sacred some of the things to which he flippantly referred to-night, and it is our duty to protect—er—the sacred doctrines which have been handed down to us from the more sacred memory of our fathers and ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... is the man, so easily scared at the very shadow of trickery, who is so flippantly pronounced to be ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... when I left it, twenty minutes ago,' the man answered flippantly; for to-night was Christmas Eve, and English hotel servants do not welcome guests who stay ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... she doesn't," replied this elegant young gentleman, flippantly. Extremes meet. The naked savage has a fairly low estimate of the value of his womankind, but it is many degrees higher than that of this product of a ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... fear, rather flippantly on this topic; but that is only because I dare not trust myself to be serious. I realize as much as any one that the life is a shameful life, and all that sort of thing; but I boil with indignation at the hundred shamefulnesses which these ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... feelings are towards me. After injuring me as he has, he can afford to be magnanimous. After robbing me of my hopes and my reputation, he can talk very flippantly about burying the hatchet. I tell you again there must be no relations of any kind between his family and mine. I am astonished and indignant, Edward, to think that you should allow yourself to be caught in any ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... elderly men to refer either flippantly or with gentle humor to their days of courtship, forgetting (or ignoring) the tremulous eagerness, the grave questioning and the tender solemnity of purpose with which they weighed the joys and responsibilities of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... answer by Miss Jeremy. These replies were usually in a querulous tone, and were often apparently unwilling. Also occasionally there was a bit of vernacular, as in the next reply. Herbert, who was still flippantly amused, said: ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... at her uncle the duke's ball, guess at her infinite variety of charm in the Forest of Ardennes. Nature holds her drawing-room in July and August. She wears her fullest and richest dresses then; if we may speak flippantly without offense to the simplicity of her majesty, she is then en pleine toilette. But any other of the twelve is more picturesque than the summer months: blustering March, with its gushing streams tossing off their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Brussels, where Mr. James Binnie, who longed to see Rosey wedded, and his sister, whom we flippantly ventured to call the Campaigner, had been staying that summer. After the marriage they went off to Scotland, and the Colonel and his son and daughter-in-law came to London—not to the old bachelor quarters in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... infatuated players have put a valuation of five (5) cents per bean, on beans that did not cost more than $1 quart in Helena, and Jake Smith exhibits a marvelous lack of veneration for his kinswoman, by referring to each bean, as he places it before him upon the table, as his "aunt," or, more flippantly, his "auntie." Walter Trumbull has been styled the "Banker," and he says that at the commencement of the game he sold forty of these beans to each of the players, himself included (200 in all), at five (5) cents each, and that he ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... at the same time, I see. So tell me what you've been doing all this while." Billy Louise spoke lightly, even flippantly, but her eyes were making love to him shyly, whether ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... this stormy look, and trembled into half sarcastic smiles, as if each feature reviled the other. Now I was larger, taller, more pronounced in face and person than the pretty fairy who could entertain him so flippantly, while I sat dumb and silent in his presence. No wonder I hated myself, yet many persons had thought me good looking, and I could recollect a thousand compliments on my talents and powers of pleasing, which came to me ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... to flap over you shelteringly, madame," I rejoined, somewhat flippantly, I fear, "and will to the end, no doubt; for, in its very organization, our country can never be subjected to the fluctuations of other ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... flippantly, "as long as we delay our decision, we shall continue to be persons of importance in the eyes of the faculty. It's comical to see how deferential they all are. I took dinner at the Burton Sunday, and afterward Miss Raymond invited a few of us into her room for coffee. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... you ever do, may I be there to hear!" she rejoined flippantly. "He's like a raging bull when he's crossed. I hear he came to ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... to present his friend in the usual form. To his astonishment, Midwinter took the words flippantly out of his lips, and introduced himself to Miss Milroy with a confident look, a hard laugh, and a clumsy assumption of ease which presented him at his worst. His artificial spirits, lashed continuously ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... disapproving look brought a mocking little smile to the other girl's face; her quick comprehension evidently detected the rebuke, but she only answered flippantly: ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... shrieked. "You are both lies, and you dare to come before Tario, last and mightiest of the jeddaks of Barsoom, and assert your reality. Some one shall pay well for this, Jav, and unless I mistake it is yourself who has dared thus flippantly to trifle with the good ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she threw back flippantly over her shoulder, as she went to bid Mrs. Shelley good-night. "I'm telling ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... in his being. It was a calm, cloudless, brilliant night. The heavens, the work of God's fingers, canopied them gloriously. The moon and the stars, which God had ordained beamed down upon them with serene lustre. As they were flippantly giving utterance to the arguments of atheism. Napoleon paced to and fro upon the deck, taking no part in the conversation, and apparently absorbed in his own thoughts. Suddenly he stopped before them and said, in those tones of dignity which ever overawed, "Gentlemen, your arguments are ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... remonstrance a little flippantly, I thought, evidently feeling that too much had been made out of very little; for he averred that his 'attentions' to Hesper had been of the slightest character, hardly more than occasional looks and whispers, which, from her cold reception of them, ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... her. She listens willingly and replies gaily to the gallant speeches and bold conversation of a certain Chevalier, a professional coxcomb, but to you she speaks seriously and with a preoccupied air. If you take on a tender and affectionate tone, she replies flippantly, or perhaps changes the subject. All this intimidates you, troubles you, and drives you to despair. Poor Marquis!—and I answer you, that all this is love, true and beautiful. The absence of mind which she affects ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... be frowned upon. The mistake of these individuals lies in the fact that they fail to see that the chief cause of humanity's triumphs is found in the works performed by those thinkers who in all ages have corresponded to the persons flippantly characterized pessimists at the present time: they who have assailed the existing order of things, who have thrown into the congregation of the people the shells of doubt; who have confronted the priests and potentates of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... much laughter," interrupted the delegate flippantly. "Well, we were yarning and laughing over Mrs. Beaudesart's simplicity; and it came out that Nelson and Mooney knew there was some reason why you dare n't go back to where you were known; but they had never heard the story; so ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and though he sometimes spoiled things by laughing at the wrong time, for which she scolded him duly and without mercy, she knew he meant to do his best. His impending retirement had been one of her greatest triumphs. She was sick to death of the circle of City people, of what she flippantly called "Square milers," and that had been the main reason she had given to her husband in urging him to give up business and go into ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... shot up toward the eleventh story in the elevator she rehearsed her opening scene with Hilmer. She decided to take her cue flippantly. She would banter him at first and gradually veer to more serious topics... But once she stood in his rather austere inner shrine of business, she decided against subterfuges. He had stepped into the main office, the boy who showed her in explained. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... so unfortunate as to displease you, sir, it is impossible for me to apologize too deeply, or too sincerely; but I cannot confess the same contrition for having answered Sir Frederick flippantly when he pressed me rudely. Since he forgot I was a lady, it was time to show him that I am ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... soldiers and the learned professions sat elbow to elbow, round the generous table that offered choicest viands money could procure. In the handsome rooms above they puffed fragrant and real Havanas, while the latest developments of news, strategy and policy were discussed; sometimes ably, sometimes flippantly, but always freshly. Here men who had been riding raids in the mountains of the West; had lain shut up in the water batteries of the Mississippi; or had faced the advance of the many "On-to-Richmonds"—met ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Cheever was chattering flippantly with a group of the dispersing audience, while her heart was in throes of dismay at her ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... guess just as probable, in three months' time. There are men just as learned and just as honest who have examined their guesses, and find them poor inventions indeed. And we have a right to deny point blank the assertions so flippantly made by men like M. Renan. 'It is universally acknowledged that this book was never written by Daniel or Isaiah or Jeremiah,' 'It is certain this chapter is an addition of such and such a date,' etc. It is not universally acknowledged. It is ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... when I flippantly spoke of our expedition as "driving out to pay calls," how nearly my thoughtless words were to be realised. We started immediately after an early dejeuner, sitting side by side in a little low-swung carriage, a superior phaeton, or poor relation of a victoria. The day was hot, but a delicious ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... says Mass in an unknown tongue, are not the people thereby kept in ignorance of what he says, and is not their time wasted in Church? We are forced to smile at such charges, which are flippantly repeated from year to year. These assertions arise from a total ignorance of the Mass. Many Protestants imagine that the essence of public worship consists in a sermon. Hence, to their minds, the primary duty of a congregation ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... strain of life, has without a doubt increased. The most casual of observers will tell you that the generation of the Great War is a neurasthenic generation. It takes its pleasures too intensely, its pains too seriously, its troubles too flippantly. But what is neurasthenia? Beard himself regarded it as a chronic fatigue and loss of tone of the nervous system, a literal interpretation of his term. That the conception, as far as it goes, is valid is proved by the fact that ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... sorrowfully the judge regarded the prince who thus flippantly defied the law of which he was the guardian, but his face was firm and his voice ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... forward deck, watching the titanic struggle, feeling the ship tremble at each impact of the waves, and hearing the roar that only a storm at sea can produce. Upon returning to his friends he said, "Never again can I speak flippantly of the ocean; never again can I use the expression, 'crossing the pond.' The sea is too vast and too sublime for that." He had achieved reverence. Many a child in school can spell the name of the ocean and give a book ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... living in great seclusion—a fact for which gossip found no difficulty in accounting. Did not all the world know of the treachery and death of Duke Michael? Nevertheless, George bade Bertram Bertrand be of good cheer, "for," said he flippantly, "a live poet is better than a dead duke." Then he turned on me ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... it from her letter. She seemed to write flippantly about things—but that was just because she hates insincerity and flummery, and the world she lives in doesn't satisfy her. Why, it was as if I read slick through to her soul. That woman would go through anything for a man ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... anybody now, for he's busy talking with one of our producers. You'll have to call again," she said flippantly. But even as she spoke she glanced at the card, started and turned red. "Oh, pardon me!" she added hastily and fled back to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... somewhere in the literature of the day. Perhaps it would have been for the good of some of our readers, if we had done this sooner. But, indeed, to treat with entirely condign justice a book which deals very freely and flippantly with the literary and even the personal character of one who, though an eminent and to some extent a public man, was still only yesterday a private gentleman among us, a neighbor and a friend, is a matter of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rather flippantly, perhaps, "Tell the captain I'm going to dine in the ward-room." I meant no disrespect, for I felt none. Perhaps the fellow who took back my answer worded it maliciously. I had totally forgotten, as soon as I had uttered my excusal, whether I had or had not ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... movements of political revolution, which ultimately reconstituted French society. German Rationalism, empirical or spiritual,(72) in two parallel developments, the philosophical and the literary, neither coldly denied Christianity with the practical doubts of the English deists, nor flippantly denounced it as imposture with the trenchant and undiscriminating logic of the French infidels; but appreciating its beauty with the freshness of a poetical genius, and regarding it as one phase of the ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... boy in his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg perched flippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging from his lips, which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever invention. Buckley would have given a year's pay to attain that devil- may-care method. Once the debonair youth said to him: "Buck, you go ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... to ministry as a kind of necessary appendage, the public never knew why—the minister's second wife, an attache from the Austrian embassy, two members of Parliament, and a well-known journalist—Ashe said to himself flippantly that so far the trumps were not many. But he was always reasonably glad to see Mary, and he went up to her, cared for her bag, and made her put on her cloak, with cousinly civility. In the omnibus on the way to the house he and Mary gossiped in a corner, while the cabinet ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... first pretty thing you've said to me!" she declared flippantly. "I just like you, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... continued to work with energy and conscientiousness. But her efforts were forestalled by an event, or rather a condition of the national temper, of which too little notice has been taken by literary historians. The attacks on the stage for its indecency and blasphemy had been flippantly met by the theatrical agents, but they had sunk deeply into the conscience of the people. There followed with alarming abruptness a general public repulsion against the playhouses, and to this, early in 1699, a roughly worded Royal Proclamation gave voice. During the whole of that year ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the police," replied James flippantly, "and the Admiralty are as a father and mother to me; but I want to keep this absolutely quiet for a few days—anyhow, till after Friday. I couldn't turn Fritz over to a policeman without attracting a certain amount of attention. Anyhow, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... ask me pointblank,' said Lady Kelsey, smiling with relief because he took so flippantly the news she had lately poured into his ear. 'But it's excessively rude of you to ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... going to compare it with the Vatican, Millicent?" asked Anna, flippantly. Millicent turned a distant, starry ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... command that tender regard and that careful respect that they did in the times of the fathers. In politics, it is the habit to speak in light and disrespectful terms of those whose experience gives them the right to counsel and command. Young men talk flippantly of "fossils," and "old fogies," and wonder why men who have been buried once will not remain quietly in their graves. Of course, when such a spirit as this prevails, there can be no reverence for authority, no respect for place and position, and no genuine ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... returned Marianna, flippantly, "how can you be so absurd? If you have forgotten ME, I perfectly remember YOU. You were formerly amanuensis to my uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, who promoted you to the office, because of your dexterity in mending pens. Yes, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... to me that Germany has flippantly constructed a law of necessity; prove it to me in this hour, when your country has gone over to our enemies, and we have half the world to fight. You cannot do that; you could not do it on the 4th of August, and consequently ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... eyes, which were blue, and watching heavily. He could not understand them. 'Am I my brother's keeper?' he said to himself, almost flippantly. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... which the Frenchman flippantly stated—that no human beings really believe that death is inevitable until the last clasp of the stone-cold king numbs their pulses. Perhaps this insensibility is a merciful gift; at any rate, it is a fact. If belief came ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... of course." It was a statement, not a question. The Lensman ignored as completely as did the observer, if not as flippantly, the distinct possibility that at any moment the observatory and all that it contained might be resolved into their ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... to know what that 'thorough talk' of yours is going to be about. You and I, in our briefly connected careers, have discussed every subject on earth, gravely or flippantly, and what in the world this 'thorough talk' is going to ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... he might be wrong. And yet may we not profitably pause here long enough to contrast in our thoughts the careful and reverent manner in which the restrictions of our fundamental law were scrutinized a hundred years ago with the tendency often seen in later times to flippantly attempt the adjustment of our Constitution to the purposes of ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... go into the movies and be one of these here screen ideals? You'd knock 'em dead," she advised flippantly, crossing her ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... Spoken flippantly enough, there was yet steady determination in the words of Stuart. He meant everything he said, and most generously gave up his prospects, at least of companionship, for the sake of those companions. More than that, he probably gave up all chances of making good his escape from ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... English Gentleman,'—an old English air, by the bye—Cooke was subpoenaed as a witness. On his cross-examination by Sir James Scarlet, afterwards Lord Abinger, for the opposite side, that learned counsel rather flippantly questioned him thus: 'Now, sir, you say that the two melodies are the same, but different; now what do you mean by that, sir?' To this Tom promptly answered, 'I said that the notes in the two copies were alike, but with a different accent, the one being in common ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... terror. Ali raised his whip to strike the ruffian who had spoken so flippantly of Monte-Cristo's daughter, but the indignant mute was instantly overpowered and dragged ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... work was headed by that calm retort of Job to his self-complacent censors, "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you"; and it contained a withering rebuke to those who had so flippantly essayed ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... cold in the head," he answered flippantly. "My dear child, we all have fever. You'll have it, too, if you go out at ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... I'm much mistaken, and plenty of spirit, too, when she's roused, I should anticipate. But at present, in her childish ignorance, she's yielding where she should resist, and she'll be brutalised if no one comes to the rescue. I don't trust that man Maclure. A man who speaks flippantly of things that should be respected is not a man who will be scrupulous when his own interests are concerned; and such a man has it in his power to make the life of a girl a hell upon earth in ways which she will not complain of, if she has no knowledge ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... so busy lunching each other's Sisters and cousins and aunts! It is a great picnic—not a university," she said flippantly. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Tom flippantly; "any place that can give Bert three such meals a day as he gets at the training table is sure to make ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... sort that would go on the rocks for some man," Nina had said once, rather flippantly, "and never know she was shipwrecked. No man in the world ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... my paper Mr. Bellamy thus flippantly dismissed this case: "Of this it may be remarked that had it happened two centuries ago it would have been symptomatic; to-day it is a curiosity." It will be observed that in order to minify the dangers of Paternalism, Mr. Bellamy entirely ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... distressing—except Mrs. Guthrie Brimston, and she only delights in it so long as it is made a jest of. But they are all alike in that set she belongs to. Their ideas of propriety are bounded by their sense of pleasure. So long as you talk flippantly, they will listen and laugh; but if you talk seriously on the same subject, you make the matter disagreeable, and then they ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... form is justified only by condemning an established usage of the language; namely, the passive sense in some verbs of the participle in ing. In reference to this it is flippantly asked, 'What does the house build?' 'What does the letter write?' etc.—taking for granted, without attempting to prove, that the participle in ing can not have a passive sense in any verb. The following are a few examples from writers ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... the advance messenger of the coming change of weather entered by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures; he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... of time that there was little disposition now to open the subject afresh, and with far less resistance than had been anticipated the Arkansas bill was passed in both branches, and the State declared entitled to all those rights in the Union which she, with her sisters in rebellion, had so flippantly thrown aside in 1861. A fundamental condition was attached to the admission, declaring "that the Constitution of Arkansas shall never be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... blown to fragments. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, were splotched with—well, it's enough to say that that woman's remains could only have been collected with a shovel. In saying this, I am not speaking flippantly either. I have dwelt upon these details, revolting as they are, because I wish to drive home the fact that the only victims of this air-raid ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... even when be writes nonsense, we generally read it with pleasure except indeed when he tries to be droll. A more insufferable jester never existed. He very often attempts to be humorous, and yet we do not remember a single occasion on which he has succeeded further than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. In one of his works he tells us that Bishop Sprat was very properly so called, inasmuch as he was a very small poet. And in the book now before us he cannot quote Francis Bugg, the renegade Quaker, without a remark on his unsavoury name. A wise ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you're afraid he'll toy with my young affections?" she answered flippantly. "Very well—let him try! Goodness knows he's labeled loudly enough. Every time he comes within a mile somebody says that about him. Everything about him says it for itself, for the matter of that. ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... radiance of its last hours the perfume of dying roses. We now encounter acts and words of infinite grace, unique of their kind, like a lovely, exquisite little figure on old Sevres porcelain. One day, on the Comtesse Amelie de Boufflers speaking somewhat flippantly of her husband, her mother-in-law interposes, "You forget that you are speaking of my son."—"True, mamma, I thought I was only speaking of your son-in-law." It is she again who, on playing "the boat," and obliged ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of jocosely? (Flippantly.) What is a court? (A place where disputes between persons are settled by a judge, or by a judge and jury.) What is a jury? (A company of men, usually six or twelve, who hear the evidence and decide on the facts.) What are cases? (The dispute or disagreement is called a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... nothing more to say, and Lord Kilcullen was so irritated that he told his father he would not stand it any longer. Then they went into money affairs, and the earl spoke despondingly about ten thousands and twenty thousands, and the viscount somewhat flippantly of fifty thousands and sixty thousands; and this was continued till the earl felt that his son was too deep in the mire to be pulled out, and the son thought that, deep as he was there, it would be better to remain and wallow in it than undergo so disagreeable ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... no other woman, it might have been the stoicism of her race would have saved her from further humiliation, but when she saw him walking with Nellie Shuter, saw the love-light in his eyes when he looked at her, and noted how flippantly, in return, Nellie treated him, her love swept away all feelings of pride, and she seized every opportunity of speaking to him. Naturally such a course only added ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... you allude so flippantly to the tragedies which are inseparable from the possession of Buff Orpingtons? In the morning a young bird struts about in his pride, resolved to live his life fearlessly and to salute the dawn at any and every hour before the break of day. Then something happens: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... interrupted E. R. Coglan, flippantly. "The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, slightly flattened at the poles, and known as the Earth, is my abode. I've met a good many object-bound citizens of this country abroad. I've seen men from Chicago sit in a gondola in Venice on a moonlight night ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... one of the survivors, who hums as he goes, and steps in time with it flippantly, as hussars of the stage do. It ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... a widow. When he realised that these were not the masked mutes at a very grisly funeral, but merely ladies literally obeying a convention of wearing veils in public, he would probably have a reaction of laughter. He would be disposed to say flippantly that it must be, a dull life, not only for the women but the men; and that a man might well want five wives if he had to marry them before he could even look at them. But he will be wise not to be satisfied with such flippancy, for the complete veiling of ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... should be agitated," she said flippantly. "I always was crazy to get the inside dope on that affair. Tell me. Were you boys honest-to-goodness ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... the play his actual unhappiness is seen, —for instance, "Moon's just a word to swear by," in which he expresses his conviction that all beauty and romance are fled from the world. At the end of the play the line, "Yes, and yet I dare say he is just as dead," must not be said flippantly or cynically, but slowly and with much philosophic concentration on the thought. From the moment when Columbine cries, "What's that there under the table?" until Pierrot calls, "Cothurnus, come drag ...
— Aria da Capo • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... to read the "Agony Column" (as it is flippantly called), the second column in the outer sheet of the Times. Who knows but he may there see something to his advantage; and, besides, the mysterious advertisements may suggest ideas for plots. One day I took up the "Agony Column," as usual, at my club, and, to my surprise, ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly to be thought of till it came, reverently received and cherished faithfully to the end. Therefore, it is not strange that she shrank from hearing it flippantly discussed and marriage treated as a bargain to be haggled over, with little thought of its high duties, great responsibilities, and tender joys. Many things perplexed her, and sometimes a doubt of all that till now she had believed and trusted made her feel as if at sea without a compass, for the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... you would," admitted Corinna. "But, dear boy, the way to make you human—and you've never been really human all through, you know—was not with a uniform and glory." She was talking flippantly, for they made a pretence now of alluding lightly to his years in France—he had gone into the war before his country—and to the nervous malady, the disabled will, he had brought back. "What you need is not to win more esteem, but to lose some that you've got. Your salvation lies ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... have done everything in your power. Dysart has been fairly warned. Besides, who knows?" he added rather flippantly. "They may strike a hundred inches of water, as ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... don't like serious women," Milly said flippantly, dangling her slipper on the end ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... Germany by the Protestant princes who were being oppressed and despoiled, and assured of assistance and subsidies from the King of France, Gustavus Adolphus had, no doubt, ideas of a glorious destiny, which have been flippantly taxed with egotistical ambition. Perhaps, in the noble joy of victory, when he "was marching on without fighting," seeing provinces submit, one after another, without his being hardly at the pains to draw his sword, might he have ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood through it smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips were continually twitching, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... that," he said. "It's all very well to talk about such things flippantly. But when the time comes, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... long as his sleep is sound it's little we care how or when he gets it," announced Jack, flippantly. "And when you give the word, Tom, we'll all be ready to follow Bessie down ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... after a long interval there occurs the inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun were material for another kind of study of this little group of church musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at times. But circumstances would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date of writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following pages must remain the only extant one, except for the few glimpses ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... me, that they never do anything else; but generally the change is a gradual and natural one,—a growth, not a convulsion,—a reformation, not a revolution. When it is otherwise, it is a serious matter, not to be lightly done or flippantly discussed. If you really had a religious belief, it threw out roots and rootlets through all your life. It sucked in strength from every source. It intertwined itself through love and labor, through suffering and song, about every fibre of your soul. You cannot pull it up ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... was pensive and anxious. Her friends were voluble, and prodigal of sly intimations. The young gentleman was very lavish of his powers of pleasing, loaded Jane with flippant compliments, devoured confectionary with high relish, and chattered most flippantly in the most approved style of fashionable inanition. The high-spirited girl had no idea of being thus disposed of in the matrimonial bazaar. The profession of the doctor was pleasing to her, as it promised an enlightened mind, and she was willing to consent to make his acquaintance. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... is a religion of the flesh, a deification of matter; its laver of regeneration is the chemist's retort; its new birth, phosphorus! Give the brain plenty of phosphorus by high living, and you develop the soul of materialism! Yet the heralds of this soulless gospel talk flippantly about culture! ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... may talk flippantly about it, but, at heart, isn't she seriously right? She has pulled herself up to a certain level. Except in response to a grande passion she will not again drop below it. She will bring up her children at a point as close to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... die some day like the rest of you," she answered flippantly. "But I shan't have you by my death-bed. I shouldn't think you had ever seen anybody die, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... menial functions, and two mulatto children remained to relieve them of light labor. She was a dignified, matronly young lady, and, as one of the sisters informed me, plighted to a Major in the Confederate service. The others chattered flippantly for an hour, and said that the old place was dreadfully lonesome of late. Miss Bell was sure she should die if another winter, similar to the last, occurred. She loved company, and had always found it so lively in Loudon before; whereas she had positively been but twice to a neighbor's ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... interposed Mrs. Cavendish flippantly. "As——" She broke off abruptly. "There I go again! There's no doubt about it: I have got a liver ... I think I'll go home and write to Bill. That ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... said Amy flippantly. In those days, they always put two nots together when they meant to speak strongly. They did not see, as we do now, that ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... other songs—Cynthia remembers all of them, although she would not confess such a thing. "Naughty, naughty Clara," was another one; the other three were almost wholly about love, some treating it flippantly, others seriously—this applied to the last one, which had many farewells in it. Then they went away, and the crickets and frogs on Coniston Water took ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... began, with stately emphasis. But she broke off abruptly, under the impulse of a change in mood. "Oh, what's the use?" she questioned flippantly. "You'll all get copies of it in full in your mail to-morrow morning." Mightily pleased with this labor-saving expedient, Cicily beamed on her fellow club-members. "What ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... of ladies at dinner, I dissemble my true nature, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat. If then, you taunt me, for want of a better escape, I shall turn it to a jest. I shall engage the table flippantly: Hear how preposterously the fellow talks!—he jests to satisfy a grudge. In appearance I am whole as the marble, founded as ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... decide as few abstract propositions as I possibly can. I therefore resolved first to ascertain the fact whether Darby Moran could write or not. I accordingly gave him paper, and asked him could he write his name. He flippantly answered that he could, and in my presence instantly wrote down 'John O'Brien'—he totally forgot that he was playing Darby Moran. Thus this trick ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... true. To listen to Charteris on the subject, one might have thought that he considered the matter rather amusing than otherwise. This, however, was simply due to the fact that he treated everything flippantly in conversation. But, like the parrot, he thought the more. The actual casus belli had been trivial. At least the mere spectator would have considered it trivial. It had happened after this fashion. Charteris was a member of the School corps. The orderly-room ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... laughed Miss Crawford, fairly carried away by the irresistible current of the wild girl's humor. "How can you talk so flippantly of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... and battered shield, bleeding from numerous wounds I lay prostrate before you awaiting manfully the death-thrust," murmured the prisoner, and his voice sounded as if from the grave. "It pained me to finish him off," said Siebold flippantly, "I got his two eyes taken out, and thus added to my collection of rarities, the ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... to attempt to draw a comparison between the two men. The one was a colossal human genius, and the other, extraordinary in the art of his profession, was entirely without the faculty of understanding or appreciating the distinguished man he flippantly raged at ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... about matters of that sort. I have talked about it with my father, and I think he understands himself," replied Percy very flippantly. ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... coldly her own thanks rang in her ears—for perhaps he had saved her neck—and perhaps not. Busy with curb and snaffle reins, head bent, into her oval face a tint of color crept. Did he think she treated lightly, flippantly, the courage which became him so? Or was he already bored by her acknowledgment of it? Sensitive, dreading to expose youth and inexperience to the amused smile of this attractive young man of the world, she sat fumbling with her bridle, conscious that he stood beside her, hat in hand, looking ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... differ something from this sage conclusion," he answered a little flippantly. "As far as I can see, the external condition has a great deal to do with our happiness. I am very sure, that if I were situated as some people are whom I know, I would be miserable. So you see, Doctor, I have my doubts touching this theory of ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... passed a crowd of natives returning to the Bazaar. They salaamed, but Nehal Singh made no response, as was his wont. He did not seem to see them. Mechanically he guided his horse through the bowing crowd. The silence became unbearable. She had flippantly told herself that as long as he did not make a "scene" she would be satisfied. He had not made a "scene." From the moment that she had made her final declaration he had not spoken, and now she was praying ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... distinguished Moor now?" asked Captain Ringgold, carelessly and flippantly, as though it was of no consequence to him ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... make an Ibsen drama of it!" interrupted the young man, flippantly. "Riddles—especially old Hildebrant's riddles—don't have to be worked out seriously. They are light themes such as Sim Ford and Harry Thurston Peck like to handle. But, somehow, I can't strike just the answer. Bill Watson may, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... me so flippantly!" said his mother, turning again to him with a tearful look. "You are unnatural, Clym, and I ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... with a woman much older than himself, a marriage in which the hunger of the woman for love was a greater factor than the not deeply stirred passion of the man. Then, with the appearance of the destined mate, beauty and youth and desire carry the day against duty, but neither callously nor flippantly. The insight and sympathy displayed in the analysis of motive are remarkable. The author has a real gift for portraiture. In particular he touches in his minor folk with extraordinarily deft defining lines. Perhaps in general there is a little hesitancy in craftsmanship, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... I admit, I was a shallow farceur. My work lacked depth. I wrote flippantly simply because I was having a thoroughly good time. Then I took up golf, and now I can smile through the tears and laugh, like Figaro, that I may not weep, and generally hold my head up and feel that I am entitled ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... not have the Constitution broken up. Somebody says, "In heaven there will be no secrets," which, it seems to me, would be intolerable. (If that were a revelation from the King of Heaven, of course I would not speak flippantly of it; but, though towards Heaven we look with reverence and humble hope, I do not know that Tom, Dick, and Harry's notions of it have any special claim to our respect.) Such publicity would destroy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Diane with burning cheeks as she seated herself upon the cot by the window and loosened the shining mass of her straight black hair, "who ramble flippantly through a conversation and turn suddenly serious when one ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Thuillier, flippantly, "you said we were in want of a romance-feuilletonist; but really, after this, I sha'n't be uneasy. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... story rather flippantly, because I heard it from Callan, and because it was impossible to take him seriously. Besides, I was not very much interested in the thing itself. But it did interest me to see how deftly ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... the balcony, whither he had followed her without pausing to remove the stains of travel, Strefford showed himself immensely interested in the last chapter of her history, greatly pleased at its having been enacted under his roof, and hugely and flippantly amused at the firmness with which she refused to let him see Nick till the latter's daily ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... given to guard men against changing in any manner that which He has revealed or commanded. These solemn denunciations apply to all who by their influence lead men to regard lightly the law of God. They should cause those to fear and tremble who flippantly declare it a matter of little consequence whether we obey God's law or not. All who exalt their own opinions above divine revelation, all who would change the plain meaning of Scripture to suit their ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... comes marching into a blaze of glory. All the same, I'm sorry for her. I have a sort of impression—but why be a croaking raven? I really don't see why! Every prospect pleases, and there's no reason man should be particularly vile. When I allude thus flippantly to "man," I refer to Papa Moore. I suppose when one comes to analyze that "sort of an impression" the danger-note is sounded to my heart by the girl's description of ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... gave her evidence very flippantly, and did not seem in the least concerned that her virtue had had so narrow ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... matter more flippantly, Mr. Holmes, than you would probably do if you were brought into personal contact with these things. Your advice, then, as I understand it, is that the young man will be as safe in Devonshire as in London. He comes in fifty ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... ease, rapidity, and apparent unconsciousness the average man jumps from crisis to crisis in that strange medley he is accustomed so flippantly to call His Life. It was so in my case. For two days after my return from Bournemouth I was completely immersed in the toils of Hatton Garden, had no thought above the sale of pearls and the fluctuations in the price of shell; yet, notwithstanding all this, the afternoon ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... Tommy sat on the bed in the dingy room next door. His heart was beating violently. He had risked all on this throw. How would they decide? And all the while that this agonized questioning went on within him, he talked flippantly to Conrad, enraging the cross-grained doorkeeper to ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... these latter weak under Bernal's gaze, and there grew in her a tender remorse for the injustice she had done her husband. From little pricking suspicions on the first day she came on the last to conviction. It seemed that being with Bernal had opened her eyes to Allan's worth. She had narrowly, flippantly misjudged a good man—good in all essentials. She was contrite for her unwifely lack of abnegation. She began to see herself and Allan with Bernal's eyes: she was less than she had thought—he was more. Bernal had proved these ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... reply flippantly, Make them all Wards in Chancery; yet that would be enough to put any sensible person on the track of the reply. One would think, to hear the way in which people sometimes ask the question, that not only does marriage prevent the difficulty from ever arising, but that nothing except divorce can ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... terms of artists like you, in the service of beauty and the faith in freedom. Prussia, at least cannot help me; Lord Palmerston, I believe, called it a country of damned professors. Lord Palmerston, I fear, used the word "damned" more or less flippantly. ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... flatly, but flippantly. "You subjugated Eric Stanford in half that time, and his gray matter has been in a ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... once accusing me of avoiding him, and keeping out of his way on purpose when he tried to speak with me alone, ever since he came back from Scotland; and I retorted flippantly: "Oh, have you only noticed that ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... that the little star, with her pert, upturned face, seemed more anxious to have Kennedy go along than she was to meet the mysterious individual mentioned without name by Manton. For an instant she was on the point of addressing him, flippantly, no doubt. Then, I think she was rather awed ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... meet and wine and dine,' I said flippantly, upon leaving him, little dreaming how soon and in what manner ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... what they purported to be; as, for instance, a feather of the angel Gabriel, the snout of a seraph, a ray from the star of Bethlehem, two skulls of the same saint,—one taken when the departed saint was somewhat younger, as flippantly explained to an astonished tourist, who found in two cities the same ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Tom flippantly. "I don't have to know. I'm not cursed with curiosity so much as some people I could mention. What I do know is that we're losing time and that I'm fairly aching to bait my hook and fling it into the water. We've promised Mrs. Melton a big mess of fish for supper, and we've got to get ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... her direct to the estancia is, because of a party of Guaycurus, their enemies, being out on the war path, and it was to discover the whereabouts of these he and his followers were out scouting, when the sad mischance, as he flippantly terms it, arose. That having learnt where the hostile Indians were, he had needs return at once and report to the warriors of his tribe; thus the excuse for his not seeing her to her home. They could not leave her alone in the wilderness, and therefore of necessity ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... his daughter sadly that she was going to bring her father's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave through the medium of her lover's stiletto. This feat, however, would have been difficult to perform, as the girl flippantly pointed out to him, for the old man was as bald as the smooth round top of the Ortler; nevertheless, she spoke to her lover about it, and told him frankly that if there was any knife practice in that vicinity he need never come ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... joke to jest with an able woman," he returned. "Seriously, I have considerable sympathy with your view, and no wish to treat it flippantly. But if I am to treat it seriously, I must admit frankly that I think you forget that, after all, Nature has something ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... After I left Oxford I read Plato again to see if I liked it. I did like it so much that I have never found the same pleasure in other philosophical writers. I hope you will not think that I am talking flippantly. I am talking very seriously—about recreation, and I feel bound to mention philosophy in connection with it out of respect to my friends, but I do not lay much stress upon it as ...
— Recreation • Edward Grey
... purpose. Some girls speak of this necessity with regret and a serious realization of the situation. Such girls can live under such conditions and be safe. Others resent the implication that these conditions are dangerous, feeling that their own virtue is questioned. Others treat the matter flippantly. ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... women in every community whom society flippantly denominates "old maids." The world needs yet to be told what uncrowned queens many of these women are, what undecorated heroines, what blessings to humanity, what builders of homes, what servants of others and of Christ. In thousands of cases ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller
... many literary meetings, and in which he continues the liberal hospitality for which it was eminent. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. He hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the admirable mizzotinto of Dr. Johnson, by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, 'Why do you put him up in the counting-house?' he answered, 'Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there.' 'Sir,' (said Johnson,) 'I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... measure of specious ingenuity to explain his errand as he wished; but Mr. Carruth, being used to squirming legatees, understood and came to the point with a candor which made Pelgram wince. After first flippantly suggesting that the plumbing business would at least afford Pelgram the chance to indulge his taste in porcelains, he eased the artist's mind by a phrase as soothing as it ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... "almost" had such an oddity that her companion was moved, rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. "Don't people as good as love their friends when they I ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... they were to again. As the days went on Georgie, whom marriage had taken completely away from the old artistic set, found herself feeling that after all she was a married woman and Judy was still only Miss Parminter.... Judy, scenting this, told her flippantly that a miss was as good as a mother, and Georgie laughed, but warned her to remember the children were in the room.... Judy was inclined to be hurt by the needless reminder, and, as she considered it foolish to be hurt and still more foolish ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse |
