"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her family physician several years ago what he thought of the views of those medical writers who class alcohol as a narcotic, and not a stimulant. He answered with some heat, "Any one who says alcohol is not a stimulant is either a fool or a knave!" He could not have been aware that some of the most distinguished professors in American medical colleges teach that alcohol is not, properly speaking, a ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... license, and her ma deef and all. I see her go myself, and she went off early in the mornin', and if ever I see a person what you may call slink away secret, like she'd done somethin' to be 'shamed of, 'twas that girl. She knew what she was goin' for, well enough. Rose Ellen ain't no fool, for all she's as smooth as baked custard. Now you ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... to have bad laws, and if it had only good ones, it would never find itself persecuting a man of genius. I never said to you that genius was inseparably bound up with wickedness, any more than wickedness is with genius. A fool is many a time far worse than a man of parts. Even supposing a man of genius to be usually of a harsh carriage, awkward, prickly, unbearable; even if he be thoroughly bad, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... 6th current, respecting the prisoners taken in merchant ships, and, at present, on board the Alliance. And I hope that the within copy of my letter to the Duc de la Vauguyon will meet your approbation; for I am persuaded, that it could never be your intention or wish, that I should be made the fool of any great R—— whatsoever, or that the commission of America should be overlaid by the dirty piece of parchment, which I have this day rejected! They have played upon my good nature too long already; but the spell is at last dissolved. They would play me off with assurances of the personal ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... in the wheels of Mrs. Dane's chair. I resented the way Sperry would clear his throat. I read in the morning paper Herbert Robinson's review of a book I had liked, and disagreed with him. Disagreed violently. I wanted to call him on the telephone and tell him that he was a fool. I felt old, although I am only fifty-three, ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sang more than twenty-five songs, arranged for three voices. That is to say, Dioda took the tenor part, and the duchess the soprano, whilst I sang sometimes bass and sometimes soprano, and played so many foolish tricks that I really think I may claim to be more of a fool than Dioda! And now farewell for to-night, and I will try to improve still further, so as to afford your Highness the more pleasure when you ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... velly lich I cook your glub. You go bloke, I cook alle same. Sominagot, I b'long go with you all time. You no got good luck I never want the money, you savvy? You go hell—go anywhere—I go same place—that's all. You talkee big fool, that velly superstich." He looked at Van fiercely to disguise a great alarm, a fear that he might, after all, be dismissed in ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... in earnest. She would make one doubt whether she has any earnest. Yesterday evening she so treated, the subject that I was on the point of saying, "Reply not to me with a fool-born jest." And how do you think she answered my father, when he asked her if she knew what she undertook? As my namesake said, "I shall wash all day and ride out on the great ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wind whistling with a keen and piercing shriek, seemed as if they would freeze the marrow in our bones. The soldiers in the whole army got rebellious—almost mutinous—and would curse and abuse Stonewall Jackson; in fact, they called him "Fool Tom Jackson." They blamed him for the cold weather; they blamed him for everything, and when he would ride by a regiment they would take occasion, sotto voce, to abuse him, and call him "Fool Tom Jackson," and loud ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... it his business to show the management of the railroad that the thing was impossible, that it was a mad fool's dream, that when the first day of October came there would be nothing accomplished because there never could be anything accomplished. He scored his point, and then he played his trump card. He showed that the same money which the railroad would have to spend in ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... of it, he could not remember having seen her dance with any one else, besides Quinn himself. Lem's heart gave a heavy thump almost before his brain had grasped the situation. Yet the situation was very plain. It was Joe and his little fool of a partner that those ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... said, "you will excuse me if I call you a fool. There are no letters from von Schaumberg, and I have gone through the whole of ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... lips relaxed in a smile and a light of relief sprang into his eyes. It was all nonsense, of course—just some foolish, woman's whim or fancy, some ridiculous idea she had got into her head which five minutes' talk between them would dispel. He had been a fool to take it seriously. He unclenched his hand and smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper. Tearing it into very small pieces, he tossed them into the garden below the veranda where he was sitting and watched them circle to the ground like ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... his broidered vest, And there, like slumbering serpent's crest, The jeweled haft of poniard bright Glittered a moment on the sight. "Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave! Think ye my noble father's glaive Would drink the life-blood of a slave? The pearls that on the handle flame Would blush to rubies in their shame; The blade would quiver in thy breast Ashamed of such ignoble rest. No! thus I rend the tyrant's ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... shipmaster, a man right cunning in his craft, looked long on sea and sky, and then turned and bade the mariners take in sail and be right heedful. And when Walter asked him what he looked for, and wherefore he spake not to him thereof, he said surlily: "Why should I tell thee what any fool can see without telling, to wit that there is weather ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... own the United States Government. When they held up a mail-train they did a fool thing, for they bucked up against Uncle Sam. What I propose is that we get hold of one of the gang and make him weaken. Then, after we have got hold of some evidence that will convict, we'll go out and run down my namesake Ned Bannister. If people once get the idea that his hold isn't ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... was an inclination on their part to believe, you killed it—not honestly and squarely, by giving me a chance. Whenever you saw a chance for me to win a point, you fell back upon the law. And you don't believe that I killed John Barkley. I know it. You called me a liar the day I made that fool confession. You still believe that I lied. And I have waited until we were alone to ask you certain things, for I still have something of courtesy left in me, if you haven't. What is your game? What has brought about the change in you? ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... instead of that, tore it in two, saying, a "There, sir, as you wish to know, is what I think about such a promise." "Ha! morbleu, what are you at? Are you mad?" "It is true, sir; I am a madman and fool; and I wish I were so much thereof as to be the only one in France." "Very well, very well: I understand you," said the king, "and will say no more, in order to keep my word to you; but give me back that paper." "Sir," replied Sully, "I have no doubt your Majesty is aware that you are destroying ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... appointed yourself her champion, sir. No doubt she has been trying her arts on you. Don't be a fool, David; stand aside, if she wants to go, let her; women like her can look out for themselves; ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Brunow, that looked like Juno, And Baroness Rehausen there, And Countess Roullier, that looked peculiar Well, in her robes of gauze in there. There was Lord Crowhurst (I knew him first, When only Mr. Pips he was), And Mick O'Toole, the great big fool, That after supper ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alter his mind upon the boy's being persuaded by another young heir (in roguery) to crow like a cock at my Lord's table, much company being there, and the boy having a great trick at doing that perfectly. My Lord bade them take away that fool from the table, and so gave over the thoughts of making him his heir from this piece of folly. Captain Cocke comes to me; and, among other discourse, tells me that he is told that an impeachment against Sir W. Coventry will be brought in very soon. He tells me that even those that are against ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... could do was to say to myself that I must try again. Several months have elapsed since then, and I am ashamed to confess that the trial has not yet come off. The only very definite conviction I arrived at was that Vaucluse is indeed cockneyfied, but that I should have been a fool, all ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... should say," said Rutherford, coloring. "Mort has always ridiculed me for that sort of thing, and told me I'd make a precious fool of myself some day; I don't intend to be snobbish, though he says I am, but that's just my way somehow, unless I happen to like a person. Mort is different from me; he will get along with all sorts of people, you ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... this prejudice, he explains, is due to "those other Jews." If they would only learn modesty from the gentile,—not talk so, not walk so, and not keep hanging around the professor's desk after the lecture with all sorts of fool questions,—why then, there would be no more of "this prejudice thing" and he could devote his time to more important problems. (We half suspect those problems would be superficial ones. We would also perhaps give more heed to his urging us to modesty, if only the urging were more ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... attained by the use of bold splashes of colour rather than by accurate drawing. Spaniards, Italians, Turks, Moors fill the stage like a pageant; in the best known play, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, magicians perform wonders, country squires kill each other for love, prince and fool exchange places, simple folk go a-fairing, kings pay state visits, devils fly off with people, all to hold the eye by their rapidly interchanging diversity; but few of them pause to be painted in detail as individuals. Only the women steal from the author's gift-box a few qualities not hackneyed ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... she, stamping her foot at me in sudden anger, "stay where you are until you find your temper! And may your bird burn to a cinder!" And away she goes forthwith and I staring after her like any fool until she was out of sight. So there sat I beside the fire and giving all due heed to my cooking; but in a while I fell to deep reflection and became so lost in my thoughts that, roused by a smell of burning, I started up to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... but the middle-class Progressive party that was most aroused by Lassalle's Open Letter. He was regarded as a traitor to the cause of the constitution and a practical ally of the forces of reaction—in short, as either a fool or a knave. Lassalle saw clearly enough that he could not succeed without making clear to his prospective followers the irreconcilability of liberalism and socialism, and directed his most powerful efforts against ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... born fool, Mr Barepoles, that I should try to live on the money itself? I never heerd on anybody bilin' up money in a kettle an' suppin' goold soup, and I'm not ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... She had waited to hear from you if Mrs. Norman consented to see her, and had waited in vain. Hard on her, wasn't it? I was sorry, but I was still obdurate. I only felt the symptoms which warned me that I was going to make a fool of myself, when she let me into her secret for the first time, and said plainly what she wanted with Mrs. Norman. Her tears and her entreaties I had resisted. The confession of her motives overpowered me. It is right," cried Mr. Sarrazin, suddenly ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... man who was once found, is now lost," answered Marble, bitterly. "But I am not such a fool as to think myself of so much importance as you seem to imagine. The only persons who will consider the transaction of any interest will be the newspaper gentry, and they will receive it only as news, and thank you about ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... father or his uncle or his brother, but his dearest and most respectable convictions, together with the historical, logical, and sentimental supports of them. The king himself—though certainly no fool, and though hardly to be called an unmitigated knave—was one of those unfortunate persons whose merits do not in the least interest and whose defects do very strongly disgust. Domestically, the reign was a reign, in the other sense, of silly minor revolutions, which, till ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... that otherwise might be done. With half a mile of sea between, how could her two enchanted arms aid those four fated ones? The distance long, the time one sand. After the lightning is beheld, what fool shall stay the thunder-bolt? Felipe's body was washed ashore, but Truxill's never came; only his gay, braided hat of golden straw—that same sunflower thing he waved to her, pushing from the strand—and now, to the last gallant, it still saluted her. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... my blindness, fool that I was. Jupiter might as soon keep awake, when Juno came in best bib and tucker, and with the cestus of Venus, to get him to sleep. Poor Slender might as well hope to get the better of pretty Mistress Anne Page, as one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... kicking myself and brooding away in the city." The lad's bright, clear eyes looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would have got off with only ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "Thou fool," cried the old chief, "thou wast my son! Thou makest thyself an enemy! Thou lovest us not, though we saved thy life! Wouldst kill me, too?" Then, with a rough push to a mat on the ground, "Chagon—now, be merry! It's a merry business you've ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... GRACIOSO, a fool in a Spanish comedy, who ever and anon appears on the stage during the performance with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... been a perfect fool to ask Cora. She did not fear a single Englishwoman, the powers of most of whom in her heart she despised—but Cora was of her own race, and well equipped to rival her in a question of marriage. Cora was only twenty-one, and she herself was thirty—and there was the divorce which, ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... caring nothing for the real interests of life, torments itself about frivolities, about neckcloths, and the passionate desire to appear a man. Then the young fellow swells himself out; his swagger is all the more portentous because it is exercised on nothings. Yet if he envies a fool who is elegantly dressed, he is also capable of enthusiasm over talent, and of genuine admiration for genius. Such defects as these, when they have no root in the heart, prove only the exuberance of sap,—the richness ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... were now swollen and very painful. The stranger carried my gun, and in a couple of hours we overtook my comrades. As I got on to my mule I thought what a fool I had been to go alone so far on a wild-goose chase. That day's experience ended my hunting at any considerable distance ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... long," said the guide harshly, as he came up. "The wolves or the redskins will soon finish them. You were a fool to waste your ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... matter of fact, it belongs to George Borrow's day, this tale, when gentlemen rode a-horseback between town and town, and followed the river-bed rather than the road. A stranger then, in the plains of Castile, was either a fool who knew not when he was well off, or an unfortunate, whose misery at home forced him afield. There was no genus Tourist; the traveller was conspicuous and could be traced from Spain to Spain. When you get on you'll see; that is how Tormillo weaselled out Mr. Manvers, by the smell of his ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... home to the town. In the meantime King Sigurd had been at high mass, and knew nothing of this until after he had dined that day. Then he said to Magnus angrily, "Thou callest Harald useless; but I think thou art a great fool, and knowest nothing of the customs of foreign people. Dost thou not know that men in other countries exercise themselves in other feats than in filling themselves with ale, and making themselves mad, and so unfit for everything ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... I was a fool ever to have attempted to escape alone, especially in view of the fact that our plans were already well formulated to make a break for freedom together. Of course I realized that the chances of the success of our proposed venture were slim indeed, but ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he said, "Kilian was a fool. Here was no less a matter at stake than the conversion of a whole nation, or at least of a great tribe of heathens, and Kilian imperilled it all on a question of minor importance; for in the first place, the Church of Rome has always held that the pope could grant permission for ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... see me without bruise or scratch. Only Yorick and I got tangled up with a herd of buffaloes on the Kajiar Road. In his fright, the little fool slipped half over the khud, and if a knight-errant had not fallen from heaven, in the nick of time, we should both be lying somewhere in the valley by now, 'spoiling a patch of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... "These Assyrian kings are strong, but there is a stronger King than they, Jehovah the Lord of all the earth. It is He who sent them to punish nation after nation, Sennacherib is the rod of Jehovah's anger; but he is a fool after all; for all his cunning, for all his armies, he is a fool rushing on his ruin. He may take Tyre, Damascus, Babylon, Egypt itself, and cast their gods into the fire, for they are no gods, but the work ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... do beat the Dutch! As if great Jim Barlow hadn't a decent head on his shoulders and needed the use o' your 'n! He wouldn't thank you for makin' him out such a fool. Good night. ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... such a thundering fool as you take me for, that's all," he answered. "I've got my eyes open. Keep to your side of the street, and I will keep ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... made her feel very foolish. Paul was startled for a moment, and had the feeling of wanting to put her out; what business had she here among all these fine people and gay colors? He looked her over and decided that she was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit downstairs in such togs. The tickets had probably been sent her out of kindness, he reflected as he put down a seat for her, and she had about as much right to ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... Thou fool, to murmur at Euthynous' death The blooming youth to fate resigns his breath: The fate, whereon your happiness depends, At once the parent and ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... reached her, to turn her back by force, but the strange gentle voice restrained him. All this matter of Ireland, all this expedition of opera bouffe, took on again a strange dimension when she spoke.... All the time he had been foolish, he knew, and, worse, looked like a fool, but some strange magic of her voice made it seem natural ... the naive brave gestures.... One levitated above common ground.... Even this moon-madness did not seem trivial and a thing for laughter.... A dignity of ancient ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... he had suffered at the hands of the Chevalier de Canaples was fast rising to the surface. "I warned you at Choisy of what would befall. Your opposition and your alliance with M. de Mancini are futile. You think to have gained a victory by winning over to your side an old fool who will sacrifice his honour to see his daughter a duchess, but ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... as a matter of fact. Instead, I swear secretly. Always this sort of man keeps up the pretence of highly distinguished and remarkable mental processes, whereas—have not I, in my own composition, the whole diapason of emotional fool? Is not the suppression of these notes my perpetual effort, my undying despair? And then, am I to be ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... come on us again, we're done for. That Tucker's a fool, but I noticed one or two of the ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were the grateful words which he had once spoken to Mrs. Lecount's bitterest enemy. "What a head you have got!" were the grateful words which he now spoke again to Mrs. Lecount herself. So do extremes meet; and such is sometimes the all-embracing capacity of the approval of a fool! ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... here?" he demanded, approaching the boys. "A dog, eh? Well, we haven't time to fool with dogs," and he leveled his ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... rubbing his 'ands with it!" exclaimed Mellish, after watching him for some moments. "Why, you bloomin' fool, lemon won't 'arden your 'ands. Ain't I took enough trouble ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... helped foster the independence of his nature, and kept his mind clear and free from all the idle gossip of the rabble. He went his way alone, and played court fool to no titled and alleged nobility. The democracy of the man is not our least excuse for honoring him. He was one with the plain people of earth, and the only aristocracy he acknowledged was the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... I said, savagely, stopping and turning on him as I shook off his detestable touch. "Fool! You can talk now! Replace a single chapter of that book I slaved at—that would ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... inroads upon us that after a time only half a dozen families remained. As if that wasn't enough, the few survivors quarreled over the course to follow, most of them aiming for a pass through the mountains into Southern California, while I, the greatest fool of them all, set out to find Dead Man's Gulch, of which I had heard from a party of trappers. My canvas covered wagon, with a single span of horses, contained all my worldly goods, and my companions were my wife and little girl Nellie, only three years old. Everything might ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... at all in such a transaction, he might have all, and therefore he would be a fool to take half. Your theory, I infer, is somewhat lame. And what of Mrs. Dunbar? Is she an Australian ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... my life ever hurt me more than that woman's answer to my argument. She laughed—she simply laughed. But I understood, even before she controlled herself sufficiently to make verbal remarks, that I had spoken like a fool, had lost my mother a customer. I had only spoken the truth, but I had not expressed it diplomatically. That was no way ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... in half a minute," said Frank, "All we have got to do is to fool the spies; then we ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... the past there are three wide-open ways in which one may be a fool. One of the ways is the way of ignoring the past—the way of remaining blankly ignorant of the human past as the animals are blankly ignorant of their past and so of drifting through life as animals do, without reference to the experience of bygone generations. Fools of this type may ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... his St. James's Gazette with a sigh. He felt hurt, and knew that he was a fool for his pains. Lady Honoria was not a sympathetic person; it was not fair to expect it from her. Still he felt hurt. He went upstairs ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... God's-world, with its wild-whirling eddies and mad foam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think that there is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath said in his heart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wise because they denied, and knew forever not to be. I tell thee again, there is nothing else but justice. One strong thing I find here below: the just thing, the true thing. My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... "Fool nigger, doan know what wah is—doan lemme heah you talk no more 'bout gwine to de wah ur I gwine to w'ar you out wid a hickory—dat's whut I'll do—now you min'." She turned on Basil then; but Basil had retreated, and his laugh ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... in the way. Well,' I said, 'we are one.' 'Yes,' he said, 'and I will tell you: we will take you as our leader,' he said. 'There is only one small thing, and that is, we must, of course, be independent to the rest of the world.' I said, 'No; you take me either for a rogue or a fool. I would be a rogue to forget all my history and traditions; and I would be a fool, because I would be hated by my own countrymen and mistrusted by yours.' From that day he assumed a most acrid tone in his Express towards myself, and I was made full sorry at times by the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... be, for the best of us, much sense of failure and shortcoming when we look back on our lives. But whilst some of us will have to say, 'I have played the fool and erred exceedingly,' it is possible for each of us to lay himself down in peace and sleep, awaiting a glorious rising again and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... wasn't. A fool of a fellow named Backlog burst into the tap-room one night and said he had heard the White Lady shrieking, and Charles—that's the waiter—declared that he had seen something white the same night. That was the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... that you have a towel handy to dry the same." If all the instances of prodigies, portents, visions, and mysterious warnings which Cardan has left on record were set down in order, a perusal of this catalogue would justify, if it did not compel, the belief that he was little better than a credulous fool, and raise doubts whether such a man could have written such orderly and coherent works as the treatise on Arithmetic, or the book of the Great Art. But Cardan was beyond all else a man of moods, and it would be unfair to figure as his normal mental ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... even more offensive than his acts. "Hold your tongue!" "You have talked long enough!" were his common phrases to his mitred counsellors. He called the Cardinal Orsini a fool. He charged the Cardinal of St. Marcellus of Amiens, on his return from his legation in Tuscany, with having robbed the treasures of the Church. The charge was not less insulting for its justice. The Cardinal of Amiens, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... eyes rested briefly upon mine as her lips touched the glass to this. They conveyed the unspeakable. Rather a fool I felt, and unable to look away until she released me. She had been wondrously quiet through it all. Not dazed in the least, as might have been looked for in one of her lowly station thus prodigiously elevated; and not feverishly gay, as might ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... "are sufficiently long to counteract it, however, provided the boy has sisters and they have friends; the change from school fare and work to home naturally results in a greater surplus of nerve-force, and I think most boys 'fool about' with servants or their sisters' friends." Moll (Kontraere Sexualempfindung, 1889, pp. 6 and 356) does not think it proved that a stage of undifferentiated sexual feeling always occurs, although we have to recognize that it is of frequent occurrence. In his later work (1909, Das ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... man is such a fool—and I don't say your son will not be a fool, Cousin Peter—as to be influenced by the sound of his own name, and you want the booby to turn the world topsy-turvy, you had better call him Julius Caesar or ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hours, absorbed and cursing, but the tossing of the ship tired even them; they threw the cards away and laid down. Once more Goussiev thought of the big pond, the pottery, the village. Once more the sledges skimmed along, once more Vanka laughed, and that fool of an Akulka opened her fur coat, and stretched out her feet; look, she seemed to say, look, poor people, my felt boots are new and not ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... "Thou old fool!" she cried furiously. "Thou devil! Mayst thou find a tarantula in thy bed to-night. Mayst thou dream thou art roasting in hell." She carried La Tulita rapidly across ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... distant; "the villains are after me. They might as well have tried to kitch a cunger by the tail as nab Jim Cuttance in one of his dens, if he hadn't bin forced by the softness of his 'art to pull a young fool out o' the say. You'll have to help me to fight, lad, as I've saved your life. Come, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Borgia and his court were well known to Botticelli—from such a group he could have picked his model, if anywhere. Ruskin has linked this unknown wicked beauty with Machiavelli. But Machiavelli had a head that outmatched hers, and he would certainly have left her to the fool moths that fluttered around her candle. Machiavelli used women, and this woman has only one ambition, and that is to use men. She represents concrete selfishness—the mother-instinct swallowed up in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... I say - not without value for all that. All that we call proofs are presumptions of different degrees of certainty. Nietzsche scornfully says that God is but a presumption. It is so. But it is not nice of him to fool people for that reason, and to thrust the superman, whom no one has ever seen and who is even slighter than a presumption, into their hands as a waggishly ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... be cases where lying is no sin? It could not be right—or, indeed, anything but most absurd—to say in effect that no doubt circumstances would occur where every sound man would tell a lie, and would be a brute or a fool if he did not, and to say at the same time that it is quite indefensible in principle. Duty was the key to conduct then, and if in such cases duties appeared to clash they would be found not to do so on examination. The lesser ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... all gain something by it, papa," she had said. "Make the old bore give Theodora a huge allowance, and have it all fixed and settled by law beforehand. She is such a fool about money—just like you—she will shower it upon us; and you make him pay you a ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... bonds. We live, in any great society, always over smoldering fires, however highly civilized the society, and we are always threatened with the eruption of volcanic forces. It is fatuous to ignore this, and to make a fool's paradise of our democracy. Our problem is to produce such a social life as shall keep us safe through all dangers—dangers from enemies without, and within, and underneath. A democracy, or indeed any society after all and at its best, contains the makings of the crowd ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... pathological phenomenon, akin to insanity, and when a man is in love it may engross every fiber of him, it may preoccupy every minute of his waking hours, he may neglect all his work and shirk all his duties, in fact he is apt to make a much bigger fool of himself than a woman is under similar circumstances. He is less patient, he has less control over himself, he is less able to suffer, he is less capable of self-sacrifice. But this, as I said, all refers to "being in love," which is an entirely different thing from loving. A man may love ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... what an envious fool I was! How like a thoughtless beast! Thus to suspect thy promis'd grace, And ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... "More fool he," said Dear Jones. "It will take more than one ghost to keep me from proposing when my mind is made up." And he looked at Baby ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... "that fellow is no fool; he scents danger ahead; he has been in a cyclone before to-day, I'll warrant, and seems to know exactly what he is about. There goes his topsail, clean out of the bolt-ropes, as I expected it ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... certainly is your duty if your presence will cause your hosts and the rest to enjoy themselves. But why ask such a silly question? You will do all those things just because you want to. You would be an awful fool to pass up the chance of having all sorts of fun when everything is just right for it. And you would be an awful fool to give up marriage if the conditions ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... was usually timid, but never applied a suitable remedy, because he had more fear than wisdom. He had wit, indeed, together with a most insinuating address and a gay, courtly behaviour; but a villainous heart appeared constantly through all, to such a degree as betrayed him to be a fool in adversity and a knave in prosperity. In short, he was the first minister that could be called a complete trickster, for which reason his administration, though successful and absolute, never sat well upon him, for contempt—the most dangerous ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... too great a fool, poor soul, to be actively valuable in the present emergency; but she will be passively useful in keeping up Miss Vanstone's connection with me—and, in consideration of that circumstance, I consent to brush my own trousers, shave my own chin, and submit to the other inconveniences of waiting ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... recovered the calmness which had been lost during his unsatisfactory interview with Captain Hyde. "A wise man frets not himself for the folly of a fool;" and, having come to this decision, he entered his house with the invocation for its peace and prosperity on his lips. A party of three gentlemen were examining his stock: they were Governor Clinton and ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... plebeians about him and tells them of ancient Rome, and of the rights of the people in old times. All at once he rises, a grand shadow of a Roman, a true tribune, brave, impulsive, eloquent. A little while longer and he is half mad with vanity and ambition, a public fool in a high place, decking himself in silks and satins, and ornaments of gold, and the angry nobles slay him on the steps of the Aracoeli, as other nobles long ago slew Tiberius Gracchus, a greater and a better man, almost ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... ten o'clock next morning. On his remarking that there was no rope here, I mentioned that we had just brought one across with us, when he wanted to know what business I had to say anything. Altogether he made a great fool of himself before several of the men; and a Mr. Wright, the manager of the Kinchica station. For this Mr. Burke gave him an overhauling, and told him that if his officers misconducted themselves, he (Mr. B.) was the person to blow them up. Mr. Burke then told me, before Mr. Landells, that ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... once reply. Finally he shook himself out of his reverie and repeated: "Argue with him? How can a man argue with a boy that thinks he's a genius and a miracle-worker? Besides, while he's gabbin' nonsense he can look at you with somethin' in his eyes that makes you feel like a fool." ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... otherwise they would have thought me a blockhead. You know that he has depicted me as a rogue and fool. Since I am neither, it was not serious; therefore ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... want to fool anybody you'd better find a foolish little pig, instead of an old hog like me, who knows that there's some mischief in the air when the wolves get to acting like one's best friends,' Mrs. Hog said, as Mr. Towser took Mr. Wolf by the throat to ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... of social laws upon the idea that woman is not to be trusted. Their great teacher, Manu, in his "Dharma Sastra" sums up his opinion of woman in two phrases: "It is the nature of woman in this world to cause men to sin. A female is able to draw from the right path, not a fool {237} only, but even a sage." And the "Code of Hindu Laws," drawn up by order of the Indian Government for the guidance ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... observed Tatsu, as the old man filled his cup. "Once it made of me a fool. But I will take a little now, for I am very ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... yells came from all the points of the circle about him, and once more and with deep content Henry laughed. He would fool them, he would play with them, and meanwhile his comrades, to keep the sport going, might sting them on the flank. After the yells, the night resumed its usual silence, and Henry, lying in his covert, watched on all sides, while he laid his ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... youthful blackbeard who had pluckily descended the shaft after the accident. He had been standing on a mound with a posse of others, following the man-hunt. At his partner's crack-brained dash for the open, his snorts of indignation found words. "Gaw-blimy! ... is the old fool gone dotty?" Then he drew a whistling breath. "No, it's more than flesh and blood .... Stand back, boys!" And though he was as little burdened with a licence as the man under pursuit, he shouted: "Help, help! ... for God's sake, don't let 'em have me!" shot down ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... toward the treaty and its friends were manifested. John Rutledge, then chief justice of South Carolina, denounced the treaty in violent language at a public meeting. He said it was destitute of a single article that could be approved, and reproached Jay with being either a knave or a fool—with corruption or stupidity—in having signed it. The stanch old patriot, Christopher Gadsden, denounced it in terms equally decisive; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, at the close of a violent harangue, moved to request the president to take steps to have Jay impeached. "If he had not made ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... a good brisk psalm-tune, and taken it in very good part. A year is a long pull for twenty-five men to be becalmed with each other and the devil. I don't set up to be pious myself, but I'm not a fool, and I know that if we'd had so much as one officer aboard who feared God and kept his commandments, we should have been the better men for it. It's very much with religion as it is with cayenne pepper,—if it's ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Dry Valley. "Go home to your mother. I wonder lightnin' don't strike a fool like me. Go home and play in the sand. What business have you got cavortin' around with grown men? I reckon I was locoed to be makin' a he poll-parrot out of myself for a kid like you. Go home and don't let me see you ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... when asked; "no one but a fool sounds a trumpet before him to give notice of his approach, that the enemy may be ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Fort Wallace we moved down to Sheridan, where the command halted for us to lay in a supply of forage which was stored there. I was still messing with Major Brown, with whom I went into the village to purchase a supply of provisions for our mess; but unfortunately we were in too jolly a mood to fool away money on “grub.” We bought several articles, however, and put them into the ambulance and sent them back to camp with our cook. The major and myself did not return until reveille next morning. Soon afterward the general sounded “boots and saddles,” and presently the regiment was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... These were my prime delights. I sought choice bowers, haunted the spring, Culled flowers and made me posies; Gave my fond humours their full wing, And crowned my head with roses. But at the height of this career I met with a dead man, Who, noting well my vain abear, Thus unto me began: 'Desist, fond fool, be not undone; What thou hast cut to-day Will fade at night, and with this sun Quite vanish ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... a helpless ninny, mum. I can't help myself; if I see soldiers I'm bound to follow them. It runs in our family. My poor cousin Emma was just such another fool. She was engaged to be married to a quiet, respectable young fellow with a shop of his own, and three days before the wedding she ran off with a regiment of marines to Chatham and married the colour-sergeant. That's what I shall end by doing. I've been all ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... was of her own daughter she whispered this complimentary remark—"the little fool ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... sobered man; and when I ventured to ask him, on one occasion, why he too did not get a Sunday kilt, which, by the way, he would "have set," notwithstanding his years, as well as any of his sons, he merely replied with a quiet "No, no; there's no fool ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... stupid fool you are, Margaret Grant," she burst out impatiently. "What are Kennedy Square and the whole Horn ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the way Francis said it, and the latter went on, easily: "Just came from a row with Dorman. Everybody is holding him up for tickets, and he—poor young fool—looks as though he wanted to jump in the river. Takes things ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... the affair was no laughing matter. To lose Graham's business was unthinkable, to keep out of this troublesome temperance campaign seemed impossible. One moment he felt he must come out right boldly for the cause, the next he called himself a fool, for letting such a doubtful thing stand in the way of ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... and work those claims for all there is in them. Tom shall finish college and Tabitha shall go back to boarding school or wherever she likes. There is money enough for whatever you want, and it is all yours. A man with children like mine is graciously blessed. I have been a fool and wasted many precious years. I can't bring them back and live them over, but I can and will live the rest of my life right in God's sight. Can you still love me in spite of all that is ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... drama, and the demons became stereotyped figures of comedy, always recognizable by their masks (faces of a vulgar type), exaggerated hips, and above all by the phallus. The demon turned into the clown or buffoon, but the phallus was kept as an emblem of his role, like the later cap and bells of the fool, until the fifth century of the Christian era in the West, and until the fall of the Byzantine empire. In the Hellenistic period the clown took the role of the Olympic god, and wore the phallus. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Mr. Melvil, asked him, what had passed? Mr. Melvil told him all, and said, The king is well disposed to the church, and intend to do her good by all his schemes. Mr. Row replied, The king looks upon you as a fool and a knave, and wants to use you us a coy duck to draw in others, and told him what he had overheard. Mr. Melvil suspecting the truth of this report, Mr. Row offered to go with him, and avouch it to the king's face; accordingly, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... would hope to settle this great problem without special consideration of the special case of Ulster would indeed be a fool. Only for the special case of Ulster we should not be here at all. Our chief business is to endeavour ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... the tenement-house builder. Commission after commission has pointed out that the tenants are "better than the houses they live in"; that they "respond quickly to improved conditions." Those are not honest answers. The man who talks that way is a fool, or worse. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... distinct ideal of what the Presidency may be made. Whether he can make good under conditions so apparently irreconcilable is a question that time only can answer. His political family he will choose for himself. They ought to be the very largest men that our country can produce, and I am not fool enough to think that I am entitled to be ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... account is from Cardinal James Caietan, (Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv.;) and I am at a loss to determine whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a knave: the uncle is ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... my friend? Am I a man? Am I a christian? There is that wife you mentioned, a delicate little wheedling devil, with such an appearance of simplicity; and with that, she does so undermine, so fool her conceited husband, that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... at the bottom of it all, old man. We're getting along smoothly and swimmingly, just like a happy family. Let's keep up the illusion and fool these fellows of the Fortieth awhile longer," said he, and Truman promised. But these fellows of the Fortieth were not so easily fooled. They had been on the campaign and knew a thing or two themselves, and as Devers and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... "Howard, are you ill?" said Skeats at last, in his sharp way. And we thought the beggar would get off for the rest of the lessons. But, if you'll believe it, he was game enough to say, "No, sir, I'm quite well," which was as good as telling Skeats he was a fool for ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... observe the ten mile motor limit." After that the roads are so bad that one couldn't possibly exceed ten miles if he tried. Probably the longest sign in California is that one which reads—"Drive your fool heads off." ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... was just now saying, he who declared that temperance is a man doing his own business had another and a hidden meaning; for I do not think that he could have been such a fool as to mean this. Was he a ...
— Charmides • Plato
... big Irishman stopped her with a groan which shook him from head to heel. "Core of my heart," he said, "will you hush your pretending? God forgive me for a heedless fool has dragged you down to ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... blame myself as a fool for not trying to let the princess see that all was not right. But still I could not lose hope, for Thorgils might yet wish to see me, or the princess might send her men to look in on me. There were more chances now than a little while ago, as ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... I? How can I?" cried Hippolyte, looking at him in amazement. "Gentlemen! I was a fool! I won't break off again. Listen, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the corridor at the far end. She'd have a fit if she knew I'd turned in next door to her and was snoozing in the Grey Room; but she won't know till I tell her of my rash act to-morrow. Don't think I'm a fool. Nobody loves life better than I do, and nobody has better reason to. But I'm positive that this is all rank nonsense, and so are you really. We know there's nothing in the room with a shadow of supernatural danger about it. Besides, you wouldn't ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... Liberty is not fool-proof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the practical and attainable and of the fact that there are laws of nature which are ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... anything. The dear creatures have no imagination when it comes to solid facts of life. In sentimental regions—I won't say. It's another thing altogether. There they shrink from or rush to embrace ghosts of their own creation just the same as any fool-man would. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... stone-blind in the other. Now a male roaming the world in this condition is as helpless as a lion without teeth, and in consequence the Chevalier was made utterly miserable for twenty years by a series of women who hated him, used him, bored him, aggravated him, sickened him, spent his money, made a fool of him—in brief, as the world has ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... matter is not open for consideration now, an embassy has been appointed." But what is there which is not open for consideration to a wise man, as long as it can be remodelled? Any man is liable to a mistake; but no one but a downright fool will persist in error. For second thoughts, as people say, are best. The mist which I spoke of just now is dispelled, light has arisen, the case is plain—we see everything, and that not by our own acuteness, but we are ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... to Giroudeau. "He's no fool, that nephew of yours. I never once thought of making something, as he calls it, out ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Charles represented was sound, and Charles was also a wise and good man, what caused the rebellion? A perfect man driving a perfect engine should surely not have run it off the rails. The royalist ought to seek to prove that Charles was a fool and a knave, to account for the collapse of royalty; and the case against royalty is all the stronger, if you could show that Charles, in spite of impeccable virtue, was forced by his position to end on the scaffold. Choose between him and the system which he applied. So Catholics and conservatives ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the chambermaid to lock me in that atrocious little cabin of mine. (Oh, I know you are laughing, Berthalina; good gracious! what a fool I feel about it all.) I knew that he was an early riser, and I did not go down the next morning till I felt sure that he would be enjoying the sea-breezes, and that the coffee-room would be nearly empty. There he was, patiently ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... I be," was the stern reply. "Now then, out with it, young fellers. You broke into Mr. Ford's house, didn't you? Now, don't try to fool me, fer it won't wash! You broke into the house, and Mr. Fasick ketched you at it, didn't he?" And the constable cast what was meant for an eagle eye on Jack and then on Fred. He had made up his mind that he would surprise both of the ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... scrape de moss offen it myself; an' I foun' de tree too. I ain't sayin' nuffin', but jes you wait till after breakfas' an' dey all go out lookin' for de coal! Jes you wait, dat's all! Chad's on his own cabin flo' now. Can't fool dis chile ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... time in climbing to the top. Then one man drew his knife and cut the rope above his head, in consequence of which he fell to the floor and was badly injured. His fellow-thief called out that it served him right for being such a fool. He said that he should have done as he was doing, upon which he cut the rope below the place at which he held on. Then, to his dismay, he found that he was in no better plight, for, after hanging on as long as his strength ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... thoughts that were very dark indeed. He had been thrown down, unexpectedly and quite hard, and that was all there was to it. Agatha, lovely but inexplicable maid, was not for him. She had been deceptive—yes, that was the word; and he had been a fool—that was the plain truth. He might as well face it at once. He had been idiot enough to think he might win the girl. Just because they had been tossed together in mid-ocean and she had clung to him. The world wasn't an ocean; it was a spiritual stock-exchange, where he ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... "wretched" son, I think?' said Sir John, with a smile. 'Poor fool! The dupe of such a shallow knave—trapped into marriage by such an uncle and by such a niece—he well deserves your pity. But he is no longer a son of mine: you are welcome to the prize your ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... punished, but sometimes only for others: thus when a thief is hanged, this is not for his own amendment, but for the sake of others, that at least they may be deterred from crime through fear of the punishment, according to Prov. 19:25: "The wicked man being scourged, the fool shall be wiser." Accordingly the eternal punishments inflicted by God on the reprobate, are medicinal punishments for those who refrain from sin through the thought of those punishments, according to Ps. 59:6: ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... made a religion of it; and it is thought to be blasphemy for a man to stand up and say—'It is idolatry!' My dear brethren, I declare I solemnly believe that, if I were to go on to the Manchester Exchange next Tuesday, and stand up and say—'There is no God,' I should not be thought half such a fool as if I were to go and say—'Poverty is not an evil per se, and men do not come into this world to get on but to get up—nearer and liker to God.' If you, by God's grace, lay hold of this principle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... the French flotilla of invasion at Boulogne. Only one pinnace was sunk. Fulton still maintained that he could "sweep all military marines off the ocean."[2] But Trafalgar ended his chances. As the old Admiral Earl St. Vincent remarked, "Pitt [the Prime Minister] would be the greatest fool that ever existed to encourage a mode of war which they who command the sea do not want and which if successful would deprive them of it." So Fulton took L15,000 ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... was beating a little faster than usual and he had no clear idea of what he was about to do or say, beyond the definite conviction that, whatever passing impulse of expiation moved him, he would not be fool enough to tell her that he had not sent her letter. He knew that most wrongdoing works, on the whole, less mischief than its useless confession; and this was clearly a case where a passing folly might be turned, by avowal, into a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... said, "my precious wife, that I married you this day. The wisest thing I ever did was when I fell in love with you and made a fool of myself!" ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... You fool heathen!" roared Big-foot. "The Pinto didn't say he wanted boiling hot water thrown on him. He said he was hot. If you wasn't the cook of this outfit, and we'd all starve to death without you, I'd shoot you plumb full of holes, you blooming idiot ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... to know at last That thou and I, or knave, or fool, Are but the involitient tool Of some world-purpose vague and vast. No bar to passion's fury set, With monstrous poppies spice the wine: For only drunk are we divine, And only mad ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Scripture quotations. To be sure, his knowledge, on which he prided himself unconscionably, was shallow and pedantic. Henry IV. of France, one of his contemporaries, said that he was "the wisest fool ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... as you will find to your cost. You fool, you would have it and you have got it. Who asked you to cross my path? If you had left me alone I would not ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enough! These two women, cooped up in this house, wanted excitement. They've got it! That man Hale wanted to show off by going for us; he's had his chance, and will have it again before I've done with him. That d—d fool of a messenger wanted to go out of his way to exchange shots with me; I reckon he's the most satisfied of the lot! I don't know why YOU should growl. You did your level best to get away from here, and the result is, that little Puritan is ready ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... room uneasily. He was filled with disquiet, with hazy apprehension. His nerves were unsteady, as if he were going through an exhausting strain. He sat and tried to force himself to work. Impossible. "What sort of damn fool attack is this?" he exclaimed, pacing about again. He searched his mind in vain for any cause adequate to explain his unprecedented state. "If I did not know that I was well—absolutely well—I'd think I was about to have an illness—something in ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... he was met with, 'Thank you, I would rather not, I am an agnostic' Hearing this, the man in the next bed raised himself up on his elbow, and looking at the objector, tersely remarked, 'You silly young fool, a week at the trenches would take that nonsense out of you.' Undoubtedly our men are being awakened to the tremendous reality of eternal verities, and it behoves us to help them all we can. In this respect the experience of the padre is intensely happy; no work ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... Fair Isle. The owners or insurers, I suppose, were the employers of the men who worked at the wreck; but the money came through Mr Bruce. 'By cash, left as a deposit, 11th May 1868, 3,' was money I was fool enough to leave in Mr Bruce's hands at previous settlement at his request. I left it in his hands as my banker. I can't remember buying meal from Rendall on any particular occasion that I could specify. But I know I have bought ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie |
