"Foist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the seeking up of the ten missing tribes, or to the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe. Each lady contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket a month, to sew for it, and to foist off its contents on a shrinking male public. An exciting time it is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded woman, with a good trading spirit, like it, and enjoy exceedingly the fun of making hard-handed worsted-spinners cash up, to the tune of four or five hundred ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the one that introduced the hobble skoit. My Bella was one of the foist to wear one. There ain't a fad that he don't go over to Europe and get. He made a fortune off the hobble ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... used to have on the vexed question of 'Free-will,' and being myself more or less of a fatalist, it annoyed me that I never could in the very slightest degree shake his convictions on that point. Moreover, when I plagued him too much with Herbert Spencer, he had a way of retaliating, and would foist upon me his favourite authors. He was never a worshipper of any one writer, but always had at least a dozen prophets in whose ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... that's playing for too high stakes, Ackerman," Mr. Tolman objected. "It is a little rough to put all the burden on Dick. Suppose we divide up the responsibility and foist half of it on Stephen? Let us say you will come if both boys make good in their studies ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... gentlemen would look at this proposition seriously, there would be no difference of opinion among us. Such a proposition would foist into the Constitution a most injurious, pernicious, and troublesome doctrine. By the most ultra abolitionists of the free States the power of emancipating our slaves has been disclaimed. From the organization of the Government, no such right ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... matter—are distinctly opposed to religious teaching in State schools. There can be little doubt that before many years have passed, in England as elsewhere, the Churches will have to face the question of the best methods of themselves undertaking that task of religious training which they have sought to foist upon the State. If they are to fulfil this duty in a wise and effectual manner they must follow the guidance of biological psychology at the point where it is at one with the teaching of their own most ancient traditions, and develop the merely ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... and those priests were the intellectuals of their time. I wonder when we shall have a party of intellectuals content to find out the people's ideals and to serve them faithfully, instead of trying to foist their own ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... flesh-and-blood people. Of course I know that lovers are the life of fiction, and that a story of any kind can scarcely hold the reader without them. The love-interest, as they call it, is also supposed to be essential to the drama, and friends of mine who have tried to foist their plays upon managers have been overthrown by the objection that the love-interest is not strong enough in what they have done. Yet lovers in real life are, so far as I have observed them, bores. They are confessed to be disgusting before or after marriage when they let their fondness ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... of London, the lord mayor and aldermen in their barge, and all the citizens with their barges decked and trimmed with targets and banners of their mysteries accordinglie, attending on her grace. The bachellers barge of the lord maior's companie, to wit, the mercers', had their barge with a foist trimmed with three tops, and artillerie aboord, gallantlie appointed to wait vpon them, shooting off lustilie as they went, with great and pleasant melodie of instruments, which plaied in most swete and heavenlie ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... convinced that if any historian were to attempt to imitate the proceedings freely attributed to the writers of the Bible, the commentators would cover him with contempt. (75) If it be blasphemy to assert that there are any errors in Scripture, what name shall we apply to those who foist into it their own fancies, who degrade the sacred writers till they seem to write confused nonsense, and who deny the plainest and most evident meanings? (76) What in the whole Bible can be plainer than the fact that Ezra and his companions, in the second ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... no inside to the mask But looks out of the mask by co-masked eyes. Whatever consciousness begins the task The task's accepted use to sleepness ties. Like a child frighted by its mirrored faces, Our souls, that children are, being thought-losing, Foist otherness upon their seen grimaces And get a whole world on their forgot causing; And, when a thought would unmask our soul's masking, Itself goes not unmasked to ...
— 35 Sonnets • Fernando Pessoa
... the court they be," said David, to some inquiry from his more ignorant companion, as he generally affected to consider him. Indeed, with but little wit and less valour, he wished to foist himself upon one possessing both, as a being of extraordinary wisdom and fortitude. And truly, if loud words and big lies could have done this, he would have had no lack ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... magistrate. Then Osborne hurled his bomb over his enemy's parapet and cried loudly that a monstrous wicked fraud had been perpetrated to thwart Justice—that the defense had "faked" another violin and were now trying to foist the bogus thing in evidence to deceive the Court. Ten witnesses for the prosecution now swore that the violin so produced was not the one which Flechter had tried to sell Durden. Of course it would have been ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... you?" Uncle William leaned on his hoe and fixed her with stern eye. "Easier a brick without straw, a law without a legislature, than to foist an idea, a plan, a measure on this village save in one way. My dear Annie, haven't you found out in five days that Miss Pamela is chief of the clan? Sister, aunt, cousin, in varying degrees, to every Roscoe and Collamer in the township—and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... finder was a business man. He noted the exact spot where the child lay and took it to—the other parish. He would not be taxed for its support. The parish guardians would not accept the child. As the man who found the child was a guardian of the other parish, he was trying to foist a bastard,—perhaps his own—upon their parish. A motion was made to "get rid of the brat." "A church warden, who happened to be a gentleman," suggested the services of a lawyer. The brutality of the guardians as they examined and discussed the child is ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... syllogism over several pages—a pennyworth of logic steeped in so much eloquence. These practices give a great advantage to sophists; who would find it very inconvenient to state explicitly in Mood and Figure the pretentious antilogies which they foist upon the public; and, indeed, such licences of composition often prevent honest men from detecting errors into which they themselves have unwittingly fallen, and which, with the best intentions, they strive to communicate to others: but we put up with these drawbacks to avoid the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... Poketown on the map. Or else, the hard-headed and tight-fisted voters of that Green Mountain community were too sharp to allow anybody to foist upon them a granite mausoleum, the upkeep of which would mainly advertise the name ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old; And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past, For thy ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... won't. He can't. Stillwater has kept him solely because that unspeakable wife of his hopes to foist their dull, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... get a boy with a big basket to go with you, Bob; and go round to the cottages, to buy up fowls. Mind, don't let them sell you nothing but cocks—one to every seven or eight hens is quite enough; and don't let them foist off old hens on you—the younger they are, the better. I should say that, at first, you had better take Manola with you, if Carrie can spare her; then you won't get taken in, and you will soon learn to tell the difference between an old hen ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... The policy will be voted wise by the directors because it will go further than anything else to save the season; it will be welcomed by the public because of their disappointment with the novelties which a shortsighted policy attempted to foist upon them. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... office he holds—if we make one trifling exception (hardly worth mentioning)—for he is nothing more than, merely, a first-rate musician. With this single accomplishment, it is like his impudence to try and foist himself upon the Cockney dilettanti after M. Jullien, who possessed every other requisite for a conductor but a knowledge of the science; which is, after all, a paltry acquirement, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Serrepore the 28. of Nouember 1586. for Pegu in a small ship or foist of one Albert Carauallos, and so passing downe Ganges, and passing by the Island of Sundiua, porto Grande, or the countrie of Tippera, the kingdom of Recon and Mogen, leauing them on our left side with a faire wind at Northwest: our course was South and by East, which brought vs to the barre ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance; Though Murray with his Miller may combine, To yield thy Muse just HALF-A-CROWN A LINE? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who rack their brains ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... was still below sixty, and enjoyed perfect health. He was rather thin, indeed, and his limbs were delicate; but he was always well and active, and it was something of a mystery how he had been able to foist himself upon the community as a candidate for a place in the poorhouse. There were plenty of people in the town older, more wretched, and even poorer. But from the very foundation of the institution he had been consumed by a desire to enter it; he felt himself a born Sun-Brother, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... was a rattling, good-natured, harum-scarum fellow; and masterships of hounds, memberships of Parliament—all expensive unmoney-making offices,—being things that most men are anxious to foist upon their friends, Mr. Waffles' big talk and interference in the field procured him the honour of the first refusal. Not that he was the man to refuse, for he jumped at the offer, and, as he would be ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... addressed to his stewards one cannot help feeling sorry for him. He had to get all the right services out of the tenants, and tell them what to do each week and see that they did it; he had to be careful that they brought the right number of eggs and pigs up to the house, and did not foist off warped or badly planed planks upon him. He had to look after the household serfs too, and set them to work. He had to see about storing, or selling, or sending off to the monastery the produce of the estate and of the tenants' rents; and every ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... went over to Viking, and for a time watched a handful of river-drivers upon a little island in the centre of the river, working to loosen some logs and timber and foist them into the water, to be driven down to the mill. I stood interested, because I had nothing to do of any moment for a couple of hours. I asked an Indian on the bank to take his canoe and paddle me over to the island. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... plea, the tripartite treaty contained no covenant that we should send a corporal's guard across our frontier. If Shah Soojah had a powerful following in Afghanistan, he could regain his throne without our assistance; if he had no holding there, it was for us a truly discreditable enterprise to foist him on a recalcitrant people at the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... parents of new prejudices and speculations; other names given to parts which have been ill observed, or which are even non-existent, have been sources of new errors. What functions and uses has it not been attempted to foist upon the pineal gland, and on the alleged empty space in the brain which is called the arch, the first of which is but a gland, while the very existence of the other is doubtful,—the empty space being perhaps produced ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... into your years, and laugh to find 150 Your crazy temper shows you much declined. Were you not dim and doted, you might see A pack of cheats that claim a pedigree, No more of kin to you, than you to me. Do you not know, that for a little coin, Heralds can foist a name into the line? They ask you blessing but for what you have; But once possess'd of what with care you save, The wanton boys ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... change involved in the abolition of the old punishments, there had been in progress, throughout the intervening centuries, a positive development of far worse omen for the hapless sailor-man. The root-principle of direct coercion, necessarily inherent in any system that seeks to foist an arbitrary and obnoxious status upon any considerable body of men, was slowly but surely bursting into bud. The years that had seen the unprested seaman freed from the dread of the yardarm and the horrors of the forepeak, had bred a new terror for him. Centuries of usage had strengthened the ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... bank-notes. They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he addressed them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar,—a cursed ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... There were more things to go wrong than he had thought humanly possible in the management of a mine, and between ordering his machinery and taking on new men he had had scant leisure for affairs of the heart. He was young and inexperienced and the dealers took advantage of it to foist off old stock and odd parts, and then his engineers became fractious and disgruntled because he expected quick results. It was all very different from what he had expected when he had taken over the Paymaster lease, and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... chink wid de pigeon toes and de bow legs!" yelped the grocer's boy. "If he's goin' de way dem feet are pointed, foist t'ing yous know ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... that this organization of Sisters in Unity indorse the peace movement, and that it use its wide influence to check the tendency toward militarism which injudicious and misguided Americans hope to foist upon the American public." ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... reason it may be argued that it is dangerous to allow the dramatist or novelist to furnish us with a "philosophy of life." The chances are that, instead of impartially fulfilling the duties of a common carrier, he will foist upon us his own goods, and force us to draw conclusions from the samples of human nature he has in stock. I should not be willing to accept a philosophy of life even from so accomplished a person as Mr. Bernard Shaw. ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... up the murderer's bosom, and with her own hands rifled his breast for his heart, tore it out, and threw it to the dogs. And even to the worst people it is the sweetest thing imaginable, having once gained their end by a vicious action, to foist, in all security, into it some show of virtue and justice, as by way of compensation and conscientious correction; to which may be added, that they look upon the ministers of such horrid crimes as upon men who reproach them with them, and think by ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... his "History." On page 153 he asserts that he is an "impartial historian"; and about three lines before mentions that "it may suit the Americans to invent any falsehood, no matter how barefaced, to foist a valiant character on themselves." On page 419 he says that Captain Porter is to be believed, "so far as is borne out by proof (the only safe way where an American is concerned),"—which somewhat sweeping denunciation of the veracity ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Robert! As soon as ever you were gone, he called me into the library—which always means he's going to talk over some dreadful business with me—and he said to me, 'Frida, I've just heard from Phil that this man Ingledew, who's chosen to foist himself upon us, holds opinions and sentiments which entirely unfit him from being proper company for any lady. Now, he's been coming here a great deal too often of late. Next time he calls, I wish you to tell Martha you're not ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... the morning passed like minutes to the girls, and they were surprised when the porter came through with his "Foist call fo' dinnah!" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... is now doing her utmost to foist upon us the responsibility for the rupture. We were forced to mobilize by the immense responsibility which would have fallen upon our shoulders if we had not taken all possible precautionary measures at a time when Austria, while confining herself to discussions ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Chung-hsien, who ruthlessly had every discoverable member murdered. The remainder went into hiding and organized themselves secretly under another name. As the new emperor had no son, the attempt was made to foist a son upon him; at his death in 1627, eight women of the harem were suddenly found to be pregnant! He was succeeded by his brother, who was one of the opponents of Wei Chung-hsien and, with the aid of the opposing ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... you be stabbed by a soldier? Mass, that's true! when was Bobadill here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... us that 'the stereotyped literary and dramatic view of French married life is wickedly false.' The corruption of morals, she says, which so generally prevails in Paris, and which has been so systematically aggravated by the luxury and extravagance of the second Empire, has emboldened writers to foist these false pictures of married ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... love-sick old fool—you gaudy tricked-out ass with the cap and bells dangling about your ears. Take care lest I snuff out the candle of your life, and so at length put an end to the infamous tricks which you try to foist upon the good, honest, modest ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... away like a madman. "I am weary of the stuff. I'm hunting the world over, in search of a friend. Nobody loves me. I want to find someone who'll believe the lies I tell him without expecting me to believe the truth he tries to foist on me. I want to find a man as tricky with his brains as I am with my hands. He must be a politician and a spy, because I love excitement. That's why I called you a spy. If you were one, you might have admitted it, and then we could have been ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... did not withhold the expression of their indignation upon this announcement. As Mr. Doll had himself been a guardian of St. Simon Magus, it was clear to their impartial minds that he was trying by a trick to foist a bastard—perhaps ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... given due knowledge and instruction. Furthermore, if Socialism be true, it should not fear open and complete examination. If the truth is the truth, it must prevail in the end. Therefore the surreptitious and secret attempt to foist Socialism upon an unsuspecting people savors much of the lack of sincerity and of belief in its real truth on the part of its own advocates. At least they should stop making their appeal mainly to the uninstructed foreign-born and to ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... gets to de door, and opens it, and I'm just goin' to butt in, when dere suddenly jumps out from de room on de odder side de passage anodder guy, and gets de rapid strangleholt on dis foist mug. Say, wouldn't dat make you wonder was you on your ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... to-day. He'll meet opposition enough when he tries to foist this putty-clay of his on the world. By the way, what are you going to call ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... I worry about it?" he said to Grace. "When the North gets angry enough to put its foot down, all this bluster about State- rights, and these efforts to foist slavery on a people who are disgusted with it, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... take rubies in payment, by means of which he might easily gain 10,000 pieces of gold, assuring him that these stones were of much greater value in Turkey than in the east. And as they were ready to depart the very next day in a foist bound for the city of Pegu, where they meant to go, my companion consented to go with them, more especially as he expected to find there certain Persians his countrymen. Wherefore departing with these men from Bengal, and sailing across a great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Ambree, your examples are dangerous. Rogues, hell-hounds, Stentors! out of my doors, you sons of noise and tumult, begot on an ill May-day, or when the galley-foist is afloat to Westminster! [DRIVES OUT THE MUSICIANS.] A trumpeter could not be conceived ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson |
