"Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hear reason; and should you refuse, it is my duty to warn you, in very decided terms, that measures will be had resort to" (he meant recourse) "which will probably terminate in—in bringing you to a sense of the unwisdom, of the—the foolishness which seems to guide and guard your proceedings as a tradesman in this manufacturing part of the country. Hem! Sir, I would beg to allude that as a furriner, coming from a distant coast, another quarter ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... as a matter of fact, noticed anything. "He sometimes looks terribly tired," she said a little uncertainly, "but I dare say it's all my foolishness, Mr. Drummond. I am afraid I am inclined to be nervous about other people's health—" Estelle sighed softly. She often accused herself of faults which no one had discovered in her. "Winn, I am sure, would be the ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... think I remember such foolishness, I hope," said the old lady; but with a rising color almost pretty as the blush I had seen so recently on ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic. Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop twaddling about these priceless independencies and attempt to exercise one of them. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... law and liberty are to be founded in nature and the government of the moral universe. For the first time is it demanded that JUSTICE be made our chief corner-stone. The ancient republics, not thus underpinned, fell. Our old foundations, too, are fallen. In God's wisdom, not in man's foolishness, let us henceforth build. And the work of our hands, feeble as we seem to-day, shall survive all the present kingdoms and dominions ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... stick to hold over you. You are good-Lord-good-devil to everybody, for fear they'll lead to yo' still; or else you mix up with folks about the business and kill somebody an' git a bad name. These here blockaded stills calls every worthless feller in the district; most o' the foolishness in this country goes on around 'em when the boys gits filled up. I let every man choose his callin', but I don't choose to be no moonshiner, and ef you boys is wise you'll say ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... 'It's only foolishness,' he continued, 'for me to try to thank you for coming to such a villain as myself at all. It's no use for me to wish good to you, or to bless you; for such as me has no ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... ignorant, I was even as a beast before thee." And condemns all for fools, Psal. xciii.; xxxii. 9; xlix. 20. He compares them to "beasts, horses, and mules, in which there is no understanding." The apostle Paul accuseth himself in like sort, 2 Cor. ix. 21. "I would you would suffer a little my foolishness, I speak foolishly." "The whole head is sick," saith Esay, "and the heart is heavy," cap. i. 5. And makes lighter of them than of oxen and asses, "the ox knows his owner," &c.: read Deut. xxxii. 6; Jer. iv.; Amos, iii. 1; Ephes. v. 6. "Be not mad, be not deceived, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... every step of the dangerous game they were playing. Therefore it was only common sense to suspect one at least of these "civilised" houses, unless they could all manifestly clear their characters. Anyhow it were foolishness to ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... doctor, "fun won't hurt you any as long as it's outdoor sports or merry society. But don't get up any plays, or any such foolishness, where fun is only a mistaken ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... You are talking fool's talk and giving out words that are foolishness! There is no one at all can put away from his road the bones ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... Outer law and inner motive are, for the poet, manifestations of the same beneficent purpose; and instead of duty in the sense of an autocratic imperative, or beneficent tyranny, he finds, deep beneath man's foolishness and sin, a constant tendency towards the good which is bound up with the very nature of man's reason and will. If man could only understand himself he would find without him no limiting necessity, but the manifestation of a law which is one with ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... midst, and you didn’t know —you damned engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary’s-pass-hunting hound!’ He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... for your foolishness," he said lightly. "What matters their babble when you know how safe ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... began to reign at eight years of age, and in another, at eighteen. What if we freely admit that we cannot reconcile these statements? That does not prove that they are not reconcilable. The history of solved contradictions has certainly shown this, that as "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men," so the discords of God ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... came to my eyes, and I was thinking so little about myself that I let them roll down without bothering to wipe them away. "Do, do forgive me," I implored. "But you never can, of course. All through my foolishness you're out of an engagement. And you depended upon it, I know, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... resourcefulness, her great gift for conspiracy. He had to get away from her. The thought of her induced in him qualms of trepidation. Could he after all manage her? What a loss would she be to Mr. Carrel Quire! Nevertheless she was capable of being foolish. It was her foolishness that had transferred her from Mr. Carrel Quire ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... much influenced by her brother's notions, she had never been taught to think him an oracle. On the contrary, she had been told that his life hitherto had been all foolishness.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... conceived a fancy to exchange pursuits, and importuned Hosuseri to agree. When, however, the former tried his luck at angling, he not only failed to catch anything but also lost the hook which his brother had lent him. This became the cause of a quarrel. Hosuseri taunted Hohodemi on the foolishness of the original exchange and demanded the restoration of his hook, nor would he be placated though Hohodemi forged his sabre into five hundred hooks and then into a thousand. Wandering disconsolate,* ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... away from him almost harshly and gazed at her as he queried, "W'y, you po' baby, you! Who's bin puttin' dis hyeah foolishness in yo' haid?" Then his laugh rang out as he patted her head and drew her close to him again. "Ef yo' pappy do bring a step-mothah into dis house, Gawd knows he'll bring de ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... in terms of respect and pity. "That unfortunate prince," said the Emperor, "was good, wise, and learned. At another period he would have been an excellent king, but he was worth nothing in a time of revolution. He was lacking in resolution and firmness, and could resist neither the foolishness nor the insolence of the Jacobins. The courtiers delivered him up to the Jacobins, and they led him to the scaffold. In his place I would have mounted my horse, and, with a few concessions on one side, and a few cracks ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... gone astray in her coil of contortions, stumbles like a drunken vagabond against angle and corner, filling the dusty air with scraps of paper and rag. "What fury of foolishness! Are the Gods gone mad?" she ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... torture; all his illusions—desires and sentiments blended—were cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discovered a deplorable faculty; a new cause for being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness made him suffer. How these coarse young men lied! Gustave seemed to him a genuine idiot, Arthur Papillon a pedant, and as to Jocquelet, he was as unbearable as a large fly buzzing between the glass and the curtain of a nervous man's room. Fortunately, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... fared no better than his sister's, but he bore up briskly, declaring it was "all foolishness anyway," and accused Kirkwood of having "just made ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... foolishness," he said, aloud, talking, of course, to himself, for there was no one else in the comfortable room, the window of which opened out upon the most quaint garden ever seen. "It's all right to save up your money in ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... nondescript. Pantheism dethrones Jehovah and places no other intelligence in his place as Creator and Ruler of the universe; and, being conscious of the odium that necessarily attaches itself to Atheism, on account of its everlasting foolishness, they steal the name of God ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... proceed. There is violent palpitation, and a feeling of constriction is experienced. According to Suckling, pallor and profuse perspiration are usually present, but there is no vertigo, confusion of mind, or loss of consciousness. The patient is quite conscious of the foolishness of the fears, but is unable to overcome them. The will is in abeyance and is quite subservient to the violent emotional disturbances. Gray mentions a patient who could not go over the Brooklyn Bridge or indeed over ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... and very bad judgment, all that, if it hadn't been justified by such an end in view as Edna herself. Now, you take it from me: I've lived a good deal longer than you, and I've seen a host of folks get married, even if I haven't got in the game myself; and when a rich woman wants a man, it's blind foolishness to keep her waiting while he builds up his bank account. Let him build it up afterward. No law against that. I've observed a number of signs, Boy, that show that your habits and tastes are extravagant; then the more reason that you should act, and ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... could no more be induced to talk of herself than if she had been a ghost without visible existence, a mere voice, to speak of others, Monny by preference. What a heroine Monny had been from first to last! And what did I think now about the foolishness of that theory—the theory that Bedr was a spy, and had led his employers to believe that "Mrs. Jones" was travelling with her stepdaughter concealed under an ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... newspaper out of his pocket and strolled toward one of the front windows; then he turned to her. "You and I might as well understand each other, Jennie," he went on. "I can see how this thing came about. It was a piece of foolishness on my part not to have asked you before, and made you tell me. It was silly for you to conceal it, even if you didn't want the child's life mixed with mine. You might have known that it couldn't be done. That's neither here nor there, though, now. The thing that I ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Old Fellow," she spoke sharply, tightening the reins as she touched his flank with her spur, "we haven't time for foolishness! Generally, in fact always," accenting the last word, "horses—and men—go in the direction I want them to go! Why, you're as stubborn—as—as the Ramblin' Kid!" she finished with another laugh as Old Blue, with a snort of fear, ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... Paul had lost his wife and child, and Rowland's children had all had the disease, but had recovered. As for any idea about taking infection from men coming out of places where that infection existed, that would have been the merest foolishness; at least, Paul and Rowland thought so, and as they were destined to be my close companions for some days, cooking for me, tying up my blankets, and sleeping beside me, it was just as well to put a good face upon the matter and trust once more to the glorious ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... breaking out in a laugh. When I could hold in no longer, I laughed out, and said, "Well, Walter, what luck last night?" He was very much disgusted, and said, "Humph! you all think that you are smart. I can't see anything to laugh at in such foolishness as that." He said, "Here; I have brought your bag back." That conquered me. After that kind of magnanimous act in forgiving me and bringing my bag back so pleasantly and kindly, I was his friend, and would ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... his disgust at this foolishness. "Haven't you sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You're not a kid any more. In age you're a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don't do you any good. You're in trouble good and deep. Folks have got ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... flashes of intuition, that this choice of hers was a hideous mistake. The situation repelled me. But the very strangeness of it seemed to attract the morbid Alice. And it was this one curious strain of unexplained foolishness marring her otherwise strong and in many ways beautiful character which prevented my loving her completely and safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who feels that ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... themselves no small airs of recent years—they dress, so far as their means will go, as flashily as servants in cities, and stand upon their dignity. This foolishness has, perhaps, one good effect—it tends to diminish the illegitimate births. The girls are learning more self-respect—if they could only achieve that and eschew the other follies it would be a clear gain. It may be questioned whether purely agricultural ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... foolishness. They think, but they do not know," rejoined this Hyperborean agnostic, as positively and as ignorantly as if he had ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... I waked up in this year 2000 might be said to have consisted of a succession of instantaneous mental readjustments of a revolutionary character, in which what had formerly seemed evil to me had become good, and what had seemed wisdom had become foolishness. Had this conversation about the strikers taken place anywhere else, the entirely new impression I had received of the part played by them in the great social revolution of which I shared the benefit would simply have ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... Mrs. Lenox, turning upon him, "I'm sorry for you poor men, you mistaken servants of boasted reason! Reason is the biggest fallacy on earth. It leads men by the straight path of logic to pure foolishness." ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... the clothing and all the little nothings that had once belonged to his wife revealed the depths of love—or the foolishness of it, all depending upon your point of view. Mrs. Millais tells of calling at Rossetti's house in Cheyne Walk in Eighteen Hundred Seventy, nearly ten years after the death of Elizabeth Eleanor, and having occasion to hang her wraps in a wardrobe, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... women, or any foolishness of that sort," the missionary said. "The whole edifice of his purpose came tumbling about his ears from a totally unexpected cause. Something happened. Something happened to the man himself. It was ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... prevailed that if the mother does not get what her longing soul supremely desires, that the on-coming baby is going to cry and cry until it is given what the mother wanted with all her heart and did not get. Such an idea is the very quintessence of folly and the personification of foolishness and superstition. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... idea that there was such danger in an elephant-hunt; yet I must say," continued Alexander, "that, although it may appear foolishness, it only makes me more ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... glance at her, I saw she was watching me with that queer, sideways look.... Ey.... And in a moment I was all flesh and blood and foolishness. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... death I'm afeared of, it's—oh; you will never understand for being a man," her voice lowered instinctively; "somehow I hate the thought of those strange men hacking and spoiling my body. That's just foolishness, I know, and my time's pretty well gone for foolishness. I've always sort of tended my body, Gordon, and kept it white and soft. I thought if a man asked me in spite of—well, my face, he could take pride in me underneath. But that's all done with; I ought ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... would be charming." The instant Angelique thought this, Peggy Morrison's plan lost foolishness, and gained in all eyes the dignity of adventure. "But we have ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Joe, rather shamefacedly deprecating the desire to lionize him, "there wasn't much credit in what I did. I'm even sorry I did it, for my foolishness sent me to the hospital an' put me out o' the war. But there was Tom McChesney, lyin' out there in No Man's Land, with a bullet in his chest an' moanin' for water. Tom was a good chum o' mine, an' I was mad when I saw him fall—jest as the Boches was drivin' ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... abroad, except they be old, and wear only long dirty white robes, muffling the lower part of their faces. None of them smiled, and it is noticeable that these people, like our own Don, do never laugh, taking such demonstration as a sign of weak understanding and foolishness, but watching all our actions very intently. And presently an old Moor, with a white beard and more cleanly dressed than the rest, pushing the crowd aside to see what was forward, recognised Don Sanchez, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... urged her to relieve Myles's somewhat awkward humility, perhaps it was something more than either that lent her bravery to speak, even knowing that the Lady Anne heard all. She turned quickly to him: "Nay, Sir Myles," she said, "I am foolish, and do wrong thee by my foolishness and silence, for, truly, I am proud to have thee wear my favor." She unclasped, as she spoke, the thin gold chain from about her neck. "I give thee this chain," said she, "and it will bring me joy to have it honored by thy true knightliness, and, giving it, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... 's full of this bond-servant. The two were in the kitchen just now, talking about paradise, and I know not what other foolishness." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Vicky Van one person! Why, then, Ruth killed—No! a thousand times NO! It couldn't be true! The boy was insane, and Stone was, too. I'd show them their own foolishness. ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... you looking t'ards me just now as we crossed. I see'd you glance up as they, in their foolishness, was reckoning they knew the mind o' God. Tell me, miss, how ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with their fair little faces, like a pair of dolls; and their round blue eyes which were always watching out for mischief to be done. Their names had been selected "right out of a story book" that their mother had once read, and expressed about the only "foolishness" of which the busy woman had ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... foolishness and wisdom, the effort to protect in man-fashion what was weak, moved ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... by Paul himself (1 Cor. III. 2 f.; XII. 3; Phil. I. 18) nor is it analogous to the later dogma, not to speak of being identical with it. The characteristic of this dogma is that it represents itself in no sense as foolishness, but as wisdom, and at the same time desires to be regarded as the contents of revelation itself. Dogma in its conception and development is a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the Gospel. By comprehending ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... impressions from their previous endearments seemed to hustle away into the corner of their brains, repeating themselves as echoes from a time of supremely purblind foolishness. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... has been, they have trotted out kings, queens, princes, bishops, nobles, ladies and gentlemen of all grades, wise men, fools, and fanatics, to fill their coffers, while they have been standing by laughing in their sleeves at the foolishness of ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... he saw me he drew in his reins, and then threw On the gate-post his bridle, and—what does he do But come down where I sat; and he lifted his hat, And he says—well, thar ain't any need to tell THAT; 'Twas some foolishness, sure, but it 'mounted to this, Thet he asked for a drink, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the civilization of the Middle Ages was fixed and unprogressive is a mere literary superstition, and its origin is to be found in the ignorance and perversity of the men of the Renaissance; and hardly less, it must be added, in the foolishness of many of the conceptions of ...
— Progress and History • Various
... craftily, smiling behind his hand, with the cunning born of the fog in his brain. Shortly they went away again, leaving on the table a pile of silver. Cable the President! What a joke! and he chuckled aloud. He would teach them to come and worry him with their foolishness. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... advice as to peace or war, had looked like a baby, as long as he spoke with the knowledge and sense of a full-grown man. But, alas! with the outward form of an infant, he had taken on its helplessness and foolishness, and there was no one who could train him to better things. The end of it all was, that before a month had passed the population had died out, and the fairy Dindonette, ashamed and grieved at the effects of her folly, had left the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... over you from land to sea; nor shall you see the blossoms open white over the hills, nor feel the earth grow warm as the summer comes in, because the bringer of fair weather is angry with you for the foolishness which you have done. But when at last the west wind returns to you, remember that Katipah, the poor and unprofitable one, is Gamma-gata's wife, and that she has remembered, and has ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... all I needed to hear. Now, I will not mince matters with you, Aldred. Either you give up this foolishness, or I am here ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... don't you see? It concerns the presentation of a counter-petition, or rather, a protest. Don't you understand? Makaraig and some others have asked that an academy of Castilian be opened, which is a piece of genuine foolishness—" ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... wounded. Make it a rule, my boys, never to shirk your duty, however great the risk to life may be; but, on the other hand, never risk your lives unless it is your duty to do so. What is gallantry in the one case is foolishness in the other. Although you are but pages, yet it may well be that in such a siege as this you will have many opportunities of showing that you are of good English stock; but while I would have you shrink from no danger when there is a need for you to expose yourselves, I say also ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... "Some foolishness on the part of the niggers. I'll look into it after supper. When the ha'nt begins abstracting chickens from the oven I think it's ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... mere revolving glow-worms. The fiery serpents could not collect among them the spirit of a tortoise. The set piece, a ship at sea, showed one mast and the captain, and then went out. One or two items did their duty, but this only served to render the foolishness of the whole more striking. The little girls giggled, the little boys chaffed, the aunts and cousins said it was beautiful, the uncles inquired if it was all over, and talked about supper and trains, the "villagers and retainers" dispersed laughing, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... times you ask me what to do. Sometimes you don't do what I say, and then you're sorry afterwards. I tell you this is foolishness. You want the white-face girl and you let the man live to please her! What sense is there in that? She won't take you as long as ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... John. Ef you could master yo' own soft heart—ef you could stay away (like he's tole ye a minny a time to do, knowin' 'at you was safe not to mind him)—Sammy would stop this here foolishness. He'd come to his senses and be thankful for what the Lord sent, like other ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... were done. It must be sufficient for us to know that such was the will of God; when He thinks proper, He allows us to understand His ways; but to our limited capacities, most of His doings are inscrutable. But are we to suppose that, because we, in our foolishness, cannot comprehend His reasons, that therefore they must be cavilled at? ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... parts, and generation are phenomena which indicate the presence of life; which most certainly is not co-extensive with matter. So Hylozoism, ancient and modern, under whatever name you please to term it, breaks down. Here, also, we discover that it is foolishness to confound the ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... "You talk some foolishness. A young man like you! A quarrel with your sweetheart, is it? Well, it will be over as quick as a rainy day. Then ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... to wait over—an invitation gladly accepted, as visits to Loringwood were just now especially prized by the neighboring darkies, for the two runaways were yet subjects of gossip and speculation, and Uncle Nelse scattered opinions in the quarters on the absolute foolishness in taking such risks for freedom, and dire prophesies of the repentance ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... accident I offended anyone, instead of taking it in the right way, I fretted till I made myself ill, thus making my fault worse, instead of mending it; and when I began to realise my foolishness, I would cry ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... to want something," leaning her weary head against Mona's, "but it's more than tonics—it's a new body that I'm needing, I reckon. I daresay it's only foolishness, but sometimes I feel like a little child, I want to be took care of, and someone to make much of me, and say like mother used to, 'Now leave everything to me. I'll see to it all!' It seems to me one wants a bit of ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else! 'Tis simple foolishness to do this. Go and dress ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... wife help pay the wages?" Schmidt questioned, shrewdly. "She has plenty of money for foolishness." ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... of a girl and that square-shouldered boy with his unlined face would have imagined that they could be anything but brother and sister. The marriage of babies! Was there no single apostle of common sense in all the country—a country so gloriously free that it granted licenses to every foolishness without ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... "Foolishness!" he chided himself as he plodded along. "She doesn't know any one but Thayer—and what if she does? It's none of my business. She's the one who has the claim on me; ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... sure it was only ignorance and foolishness on their part—onraisonable cratures all or ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... London University at the age of twenty-one and resume them at forty-three, you will find them (one is told) a considerably tougher job than you found them twenty-two years before. Youth is the time to read for examinations; youth is used to such foolishness, and takes it lightly in its stride. At thirty you may be and probably are much cleverer than you were at twenty; you will have more ideas and better ones, and infinitely more power of original and creative thought; but you will not, probably, find it so easy to grip and retain knowledge ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... wisdom, but in the showing of the spirit and power. That your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness: But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God; for the foolishness of God is wiser than men; but the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... scared from his side men more consistent than he had ever pretended to be. But on him they were lost. The counsel of Achitophel, that counsel which was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God, was turned into foolishness. He who had become a by-word, for the certainty with which he foresaw and the suppleness with which he evaded danger, now, when beset on every side with snares and death, seemed to be smitten with a blindness as strange as his former clear-sightedness, and, turning neither to the right nor ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sweat pouring down his face, both hands now clasping the telephone—his right being completely numbed—he called upon the gods to witness the foolishness of mortals. Suddenly a hideous cackle of mosquito-laughter filtered through and, by some diabolical contrivance of the signals, the tiny voice swelled into a bellow close ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... truth," he said slowly, "you speak foolishness as well. Hannibal will love no mistress but Carthage, and there is no man living who shall sway him by a hair's breadth. Now I see why you spoke to him of plots at Rome and of the wisdom of delay. Ah! a woman to make game of him!" and he threw back his head and laughed. "Do you imagine ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... an inarticulate cry, but she ran on unheeding, her eyes wide and glowing like coals, her lips chalk-white. "You see, it's time I stopped such foolishness, anyhow, for I'm to be married ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... "A Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became almost synonymous with genteel foolishness. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... know, people are ashamed of an unhappy home life and conceal it. It's 'Manya this' and 'Manya that' with many a man by his wife's side, but if he had his way he'd put that Manya in a sack and drop her in the water. It's dull with one's wife, it's mere foolishness. And it's no better with one's children, I make bold to assure you. I have two of them, the rascals. There's nowhere for them to be taught out here in the steppe; I haven't the money to send them to school in Novo Tcherkask, and they ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... It was all foolishness, there was no doubt of that. The snow had covered all signs of their own tracks, there was no road to follow, no landmarks to go by. Though Joshua had pursued his route by compass, he could not retrace it surely enough to find a ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... all 'round West Point. Cap'in Shattuck out about Palo Alto said to us niggers one day, 'Stop your foolishness—go live among your white folks an' behave. Have sense an' be good citizens.' His advice was good an' we ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... intuition of hers came in, but at the best she was sure that there would be long to wait. She loved her mother also, and grieved more for her than for herself, especially now when she was so ill. Moreover, she knew and shared her mind. This journey, she felt, was foolishness; her father was a man "led by a star" as the natives say, and would follow it over the edge of the world and be no nearer. He was not fit to have ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... help him to make himself his own God—that is a devil. That some seem so little injured by their bad training is no argument in presence of the many in whom one can read as in a book the consequences of their parents' foolishness. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... immediately afterwards in ver. 5, is omitted here.—The first pair are wisdom and understanding. Wisdom is that excellency of knowledge which rests on moral perfection. It is opposed to [Hebrew: nblh], foolishness in a moral sense, which may easily be combined with the greatest ingenuity and cleverness. The excellence of knowledge resting [Pg 115] on a moral basis manifests itself in the first instance, and preeminently, in the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... talk of God was both irreverent and ill-bred. Wordsworth was an old woman; St. Paul an evangelical churchman. They saw no feature of any truth, but, like all unthinkers, wrapped the words of it in their own foolishness, and then sneered at them. They were too much of ladies, however, to do it disagreeably; they only smiled at the foolish neighbour who believed things they were too sensible to believe. It must, however, be said for them, that they had not yet refused anything worth believing—as presented to them. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... the Lord upon his enemies. Stronger to spread its arms and grasp our whole land into freedom; sterner to sweep the last poor ghost of Slavery out of our haunted homes. But while we feel the folly of this act, let not its folly hide its wickedness. It was the wickedness of Slavery putting on a foolishness for which its wickedness and that alone is responsible, that robbed the nation of a President and the people of a father. And remember this, that the folly of the Slave power in striking the representative of Freedom, and thinking that thereby it killed Freedom ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... in Anthea, "for goodness gracious sake don't talk such foolishness. It was a stupid, a wrong thing to do, after Mr Leigh had given ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... "quit that foolishness and come down here!" But the junior Wharton, his eyes fixed upon the stage, merely danced the harder. When the exhibition ended he bowed, hand in hand with Miss Demorest, then leaped nimbly over the footlights and made his way toward Jarvis Hammon, nodding ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... said, feeling blindly for a handkerchief. "Never heard tell o' such foolishness, making a ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... the same old string," she said, withdrawing her hand. "I'm tired now, Ben, too tired to talk foolishness." ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and I saw it in the distance; but swiftly went their bullocks, and I could not overtake it. At last they stopped to rest, and I came to where they were. But they smiled at me and said: 'Did you ever hear of such a thing as you ask in foolishness? Is it the custom to give up a child, once it is ours?'" Sometimes a new story is invented on the spot. "Did you not know it was my sister's child; and I, her only sister, having no child of my own, have adopted this one as my own? Would you ask me ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... "In my foolishness, my daughter, I sits like a stone, and he springs to his feet, and snatches up his things, and says, 'Good-bye, old gipsy woman, and thank you very much. I should like to stay with you,' he says, 'but Nurse is calling me, and Mother does get so frightened if I am long away ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the woods," he said, "but the woods are going fast; in a few years there will be no more trees, and my wisdom will be foolishness. There is in this land now a big, strong thing called 'trade,' that will eat up all things and the people themselves. You are wise enough, Nibowaka, to paddle with the stream, you have turned so the big giant is on your side, and his power is making ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... their sole gain from this ferment of matter and empty discord of words is, that when they step into the Forum, they think they have been carried into another world. And it is my conviction that the schools are responsible for the gross foolishness of our young men, because, in them, they see or hear nothing at all of the affairs of every-day life, but only pirates standing in chains upon the shore, tyrants scribbling edicts in which sons are ordered to behead their own fathers; responses ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... I am thinking of no such foolishness. I guess that they will not be trying him for withstanding the watch, that's but a small matter; they will be sending him south for the king's ministers to get out of him what he knows about the Jacobite plot and the names of all concerned, and it's upon ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... but even at thirty it would be foolishness to retrace all that hard-won distance merely for the sake of keeping in sight of this muddy stream, the very water of which is unfit for Christian stomach, and of no value otherwise. 'Tis my vote we strike directly east and north, following as straight a trail as possible until we find the great ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... a "pressure from without," is daily forcing us further from the good old paths in which we ought to walk, and in which our forefathers did walk, when they gave better heed than we do to the inspired word, which tells us, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... any such foolishness as that!" broke in the tragic actor. "I have demeaned myself enough already in this farce and travesty of acting, and to jump into a haymow—ye gods! Never!" and he ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... foolishness, Benjy," she replied, stopping to push back a loosened wiry lock of hair; "it's time to think about growin' up when you ain't been but two years in breeches. Here, if you're through breakfast, I want you to step with this ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... deeply rooted itself in the interests and passions of men which were bound up in its continuance, that it seemed a foolish dream to expect that it would be supplanted by the preaching of the Cross, which to St. Paul's own people was a stumbling-block and to all other nations foolishness. And who was he that he should undertake such a mission—a weak and obscure member of a despised race, a prisoner chained to a soldier, appealing to Caesar against the condemnation of his own countrymen. We can well believe, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... this terrible dream with some show of playful humor. 'Hill,' said he, 'your apprehension of harm to me from some hidden enemy is downright foolishness. For a long time you have been trying to keep somebody-the Lord knows who—from ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Hankworth, "and I expect she'll find plenty to make her pay for her foolishness. But I see no reason why she shouldn't do all the better for a lesson. She'll have to work though. There'll be no sitting round in silk blouses doing fancy-work. You needn't be troubled about her moping when she's got the baby. ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... rising in the world: either by one's own industry or profiting by the foolishness ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... conceited prig. Every young fellow who has ever done or been anything in the world, has at some time in his life had such thoughts. Sad will it be for England as a nation when our boys do not dream impossible dreams, and think thoughts which wiseacres call foolishness. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... that day, having appointed that they should meet on the morrow, and confirm this covenant by writings so that it should be good. Then Abeniaf returned into the city, full sorrowful and taking great thought; and then he saw the foolishness that he had done in sending away the Almoravides out of the land, and in putting his trust in men of another law. And on the morrow the Cid sent for him that he should come out and confirm the covenant; but ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... I fancy, from a kind of mental greyness; he was all subtle tones; the laughter of girls jarred upon him; foolish smartness or amiable foolishness got on his nerves; he detested, with equal sincerity, bright dressing, artistic dabbling, piety, and the glow of health. And when, as his confidential friend—confidential, that is, so far as his limits allowed—I heard that he intended to marry, I ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... confounded foolishness, that is the worst," he sputtered. "Why, I've only seen the ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... God that your Grace may take heed of the worldly wisdom which is foolishness before God; that you may do that [which] God commandeth, and not that [which] seemeth good in your own sight, without the word of God; that your Grace may be found acceptable in his sight, and one of the members of his church; and according to the office that he hath ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... and with dignity. "I am too tired to tell stories," said he, "but I'm not too tired to shake the foolishness out ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... deicolists. According to Abady, in his Treatise on the Truth of the Christian Religion, "an atheist cannot be virtuous: to him virtue is only a chimera; probity no more than a vain scruple; honesty nothing but foolishness;—he knoweth no other law than his interest: where this sentiment prevails, conscience is only a prejudice; the law of nature only an illusion; right no more than an error; benevolence hath no longer any ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... story, and even the fables essential to Christian theology, are now incredible to most of us. But on the other hand it would be stupid to assume that what is incredible to you or me now must always be incredible to mankind. What was foolishness to the Greeks of St. Paul's day spread mightily among them one or two hundred years later; and what is foolishness to the modernist of to-day may edify future generations. The imagination is suggestible and there is nothing men will ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... clouds made of the dust of gold and vanishing melodies. Any person who knows of these singular things comprehends how little of them can be told; but to those people who do not know of them, it may appear all great foolishness. Such people are either too young, and they must wait, or too old—they ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... was on the bill there two weeks ago. Me an' Florette was ole friends, see? No foolishness, if you know what I mean. I'm a married man myse'f—Bowers there on the card's my wife—but me an' Florette met about five years ago, an' kep' on runnin' on to one another on the bill, first one ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... "Spiritualism. Foolishness, that's all. Before his wife died he was as sensible and shrewd a man as you'd care to see. He and father were old chums and father used to ask his advice about investments and all such things. They went into lots of deals together and generally made 'em pay, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and I know, that all this—or most of it—is all foolishness. We know that 'as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.' If he thinks gloomy things, he will be a gloomy man. If he thinks glad things, he will be a happy man. So, let us consider this matter now at the beginning of ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... "that you, Kate, and only you, met me as I came out! It was a grand good idea, wasn't it, to keep my time of liberation a secret from the comrades? Otherwise there might have been a crowd on hand, and various kinds of foolishness; and time and energy would have been used that might have been better spent in working ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... room John threw himself on the bed with a sigh. His injured leg hurt terribly—but they'd won. Pity Louise had missed the defeat of the "Jeffersons." Why did women folks always have to go shopping, anyway? Only spent a lot of money on hats and other foolishness. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... rare between them; so rare, that when they had put mouth to mouth, a little quivering spire of flame, dim at the base, stood to mark the spot in their memories. She moved her hand, as to throw aside such talk. Unfretful in blood, chaste and keen, she at least knew the foolishness of the common form of lovers' trifling when there is a burning love to keep under, and Carlo saw that she did, and adored her for this highest proof of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... deck, and Mr. Watson's strength was all taken from him by the discovery that some mishap had befallen his daughter. Levi explained when he had breath enough to do so. Mr. Watson also explained, and each was in possession of all the information the other had; but their wisdom was foolishness, since it fell far short of ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... lay, and there is this in it, that I see thou hast made it while thou wert sitting there, for it is all about thee and me, and how thou lovest me and I thee. And full surely I know that thou wilt one day be a great and mighty man. Yet this I find strange in thy song almost to foolishness, that thou speakest in it as I were a woman grown, and thou a grown man, whereas we be both children. And look, heed it, what sunders us, this mighty Flood, which hath been from the beginning and shall ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... piece of foolishness," I replied; "but it was a lady riding in a top-buggy. I had never seen her before and never expect ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... to get everything ready so quickly—disguises, passports, hiding-places? They must have worked like cart-horses to do it—— And it was her plan that had been adopted after all. He laughed a little to himself at his own foolishness; as if it mattered whether the plan was hers or not, once it was a good one! And yet he could not help being glad that it was she who had struck on the idea of his utilizing the subterranean passage, instead of letting himself down by a rope-ladder, as the smugglers had at ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... criteria other than enthusiasm or philosophical predilection to distinguish the fanciful from the feasible. Applying a well-known phrase from another time to seventeenth-century embryological theory, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."[1] ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... know, and held it for her to find it. And it was just as we were crossin' through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through the window, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun ready for action. And it wasn't no fault of Judge Thompson's if his d——d foolishness hadn't shown us up, and got us a shot ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... his soul beyond endurance. When he came of an age to play marbles, he was forbidden to play, because it was, to Miss Hester's mind, a species of gambling. Swimming was too dangerous to be for a moment considered. Fishing, without necessity, was wanton cruelty. Flying kites was foolishness ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... to it that if they'd pleased her up a little and done well by her, she'd ha' bloomed out, and fell right in with their ways. She's got outward ambitions enough, but I view it she was all a part of his foolishness to them; I dare say they give her the blame o' the whole on't. Ad'line ought to had the sense to see they had some right on their side. Folks say he was the smartest fellow ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his mother down upon him with tears and pleadings that he would not fail to redeem the Schumanns by becoming a Great Man. Poetry was foolishness and all musicians were poor—there were a hundred of them in Zwickau who lived on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... to rouse out of herself to-day. Stonor did his best not to show that he perceived anything amiss, and strove to cheer her with chaff and foolishness—likewise to keep his own heart up, ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... she came to the river the lower dropped her spirits, for as yet no sign of the animals was to be seen. To have attempted to place a hackamore upon any of the wild creatures in the corral would have been the height of foolishness—only a well-sped riata in the hands of a strong man could ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... opinion as I foresee it! Not that it would be spoken, you know! he is too kind. And then, he said to me last summer, somewhere a propos to the flies or butterflies, that he had 'long ceased to wonder at any extreme of foolishness produced by—love.' He will of course think you very very foolish, but not ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... sir,' returned the old man so savagely, as to render it clear that in a choice of difficulties he felt he must go, though he would have preferred not to go. 'Stay here the while, all! Affery, my woman, move an inch, or speak a word in your foolishness, and I'll ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... want?" she said, and turned her back toward him. "Tell me," he said, "what time the swan passed. I am following it, and come out and point the direction." "Do you think you can catch up to it?" she said. "Yes," he answered. "Naubesah" (foolishness), she said. She, however, went out and pointed in the direction he should go. The young man went slowly till the sun arose, when he commenced travelling at his accustomed speed. He passed the day in running, and when ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... but he went and sat down on the step of the door, and was just beginning to think what the foolishness was in his way of asking his father, when a little bird came hopping along in the yard. He ran in to ask his mother to give him some milk to feed the bird with. She smiled, and told him milk was ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... ourselves, brethren, laying aside all pride, and boasting, and foolishness, and anger: And let us do as ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... master and begged for the lightest bundle. Wishing to please his favorite slave, the master told Aesop to choose for himself the one he preferred to carry. Looking them all over, he picked up the basket of bread and started off with it on the journey. The other servants laughed at his foolishness, for that basket was the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... you said. All that matter in religion which has been nicknamed other-worldliness was strictly in his gamut; but a rule of life that should make a man rudely virtuous, following right in good report and ill report, was foolishness and a stumbling-block to Pepys. He was much thrown across the Friends; and nothing can be more instructive than his attitude towards these most interesting people of that age. I have mentioned how he conversed with one as he rode; ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any way with honest merchants of Paloma. Men are at liberty to spend their money any way they choose. I did give the men a talk about the foolishness of spending their wages in buying liquor or in gambling. Result was that men banked about two thirds of the total pay roll with the bank people you sent on pay train yesterday at my request. Also drove off a gambler who tried ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... boy arrived at Bide-a-Wee with an interesting-looking package, which I promptly opened. That dear foolish lover of mine (whose foolishness is one of the most adorable things about him) makes me only two visits a day, and is therefore constrained to send me some reminder of himself in the intervening hours, or minutes—a book, a flower, or a note. Uncovering the pretty box, I found ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... progressed slowly but steadily. Life was returning to her, but it was not the same. Out of those days there had come to her a gentle dignity, a strengthening and refining. The face, now pale and drawn, had lost its foolishness. Under the thin, white hair, and in spite of its deep lines, it had grown younger. A great patience, a child- like thoughtfulness had come into the ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... "I had got you into this by my foolishness; I must needs try to get you out by my wits. Brie, the one who took you by the throat—there has been bad blood between him and your lord this twelvemonth; only last May M. le Comte ran him through ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... GILBEY. Dont talk foolishness, girl. How could you and he be a pair, you being what you are, and he brought up as he has been, with the example of a religious woman like Mrs Knox before his eyes? I cant understand how he could bring himself ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... signs of those inky patches could I discern. Careful examination showed, however, that here and there the smooth shore was covered with sand of a rather reddish hue, quite unworthy of remark in daylight. The foolishness of my apprehensions seems apparent, but nevertheless I urge everyone to choose a moonlit night and a companion of some sort for traversing these three miles ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... deed; and yet tomorrow's dawn may light up thousands to as grim a fate. Why? thou tremblest! Alas! kind soul! The single death of this fond, faithful heart hath quite upset my love. Yet art thou used to battle. Why! this is foolishness. Art not glad to see me? What, not one smile! And I have come to fight for thee! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... bitterly as she read it, and vainly regretted the superciliousness which had alienated one she knew to be noble and trustworthy. She was naturally an impulsive creature, and, without a moment's hesitation, dashed off an answer, all blurred with tears, begging Beulah to overlook her "foolishness" and ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... the Bureau of Forestry, by the end of 1904, the only body of forest experts under the Government, and practically all of the first-hand information about the public forests which was then in existence. In 1905, the obvious foolishness of continuing to separate the foresters and the forests, reenforced by the action of the First National Forest Congress, held in Washington, brought about the Act of February 1, 1905, which transferred the National Forests from the care of the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... first grown faster than his wife, and the change in his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... simple. When the two died years ago, they said they would never have one again. Martha thinks Curt is still haunted by their memory and is afraid he will resent another as an intruder. I told her that was all foolishness—that a child was the one thing to make Curt settle down for good at home here and write ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... considered no cause is brought to light; but causes reveal effects. To know effects from causes is to be wise; but to search for causes from effects is not to be wise, because fallacies then present themselves, which the investigator calls causes, and this is to turn wisdom into foolishness. Causes are things prior, and effects are things posterior; and things prior cannot be seen from things posterior, but things posterior can be seen from things prior. This is order. For this reason the spiritual world is here first treated of, for all causes are there; and ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of his virtuous life; free from foolishness or petty love affairs, wholly devoted to sports and show. His income was less than his expenses. The numerous personnel of his stable-garage, his horses, gasoline and tailors' bills ate up even a part of the principal. But Lopez de Sosa was ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... literature in their origin, and will give clues enough to what might be told. Jesus heard, and he saw what it meant; and afterwards he told his friends: "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders ... foolishness; all these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:21-23). The evil thought takes shape to find utterance, and gains thereby a new vitality, a new power for evil, and may haunt both speaker and listener for ever with its ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... Wilson, "but you are too kind to them. Now, there is Clotelle,—that girl is completely spoiled. She walks about the house with as dignified an air as if she was mistress of the premises. By and by you will be sorry for this foolishness of yours." ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... you. I'm going to do what we ought to have done a week ago. I'm going right back to London to put the case in the hands of your British police. We fancied ourselves as sleuths. Sleuths! It was a piece of damn-fool foolishness! I'm through! I've had enough of it. Scotland Yard ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie |
