"For-" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself, and every session ended with several very earnest races in which Fowler, allowing Toll a five-yard handicap, usually nosed out the younger boy in a contest of four times the length of the tank. Then there was generally a free-for-all, the fellows lining up on the edge of the pool, diving at the word from Steve and swimming to the further end, where, after touching the wall, they turned and hustled back to the start. Sometimes when football practice had been more than usually gruelling, Steve stayed ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... I'm going to run Apache off his legs, risk breaking my neck and then not have the say-so in the end? I reckon not. It's just got to be chocolates this time. Cinnamon suckers are all right enough for a little race, but this was a two-mile go-it-for-all-you're-worth one, and besides, you'd better be nice to me, while you have the chance, because you won't have me with you very ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... between suicide and the monastery of Grande-Chartreuse, Doctor Benassis stopped by chance in the poor village of l'Isere, five leagues from Grenoble. He remained there until he had transformed the squalid settlement, inhabited by good-for-nothing Cretins, into the chief place of the Canton, bustling and prosperous. Benassis died in 1829, mayor of the town. All the populace mourned the benefactor and man of genius. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... should be wholly sacrificed in personal development to the service or welfare of any other human being, or group of human beings, either inside or outside the family circle. On the other hand, after temporary excursions into an extreme individualism that ordained a free-for-all competition in every walk of life, society is now keenly alive to the need for control of personal desire and individual activity within channels of social usefulness. It is beginning to be ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... had considerably developed their character, both for good and evil, in the other world; and this gave rise to some singular results. Some who had been heroes and saints on earth had there sunk into scamps and good-for-nothings; and there were examples, too, of a contrary transformation. For instance, the fumes of self-conceit mounted to Saint Anthony's head when he learned what immense veneration and adoration had been paid to him by all Christendom; and he who here below withstood the most terrible ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... weather in her porch, and they had gradually become good friends; he performed little services for her, and received a cup of hot coffee in return. When the cold was very bitter, she always called him in; and then she would tell him about the sea and about her good-for-nothing husband, who kept away and left her to toil for her living by mending nets for the fishermen. In return Pelle felt bound to tell her about Father Lasse, and Mother Bengta who lay at home in the churchyard at Tommelilla. The talk never came to much more, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that as the law stood until very recently in many of the States a husband was not the best guardian for his wife in many cases, and frequently the greatest hardships that I have ever known in the community have arisen from the fact that a good-for-nothing, drunken, miserable man had married a respectable lady with property, and your law turned the whole of it right over to him and left her a pauper at his will. While I was at the bar I was more conversant with the manner in which these domestic affairs were transacted than I am now; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to the master of the house, and has doubtless been sung for centuries of Christmases since the old Byzantine days when such things as are mentioned in the song really existed in the houses. This is a word-for-word translation:— ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... ounce; mix this with a little 'charity-for-others' and two or three sprigs of 'keep-your-tongue-between-your-teeth;' simmer them together in a vessel called 'circumspection' for a short time, and it will be fit for application. The symptom is a violent itching in the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... as a guide and inspiration the success of our Atoms-for-Peace proposal, which in only a few years, under United Nations auspices, became a reality in the International Atomic ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... [after a brief pause]. Why, so she did! You good-for-nothing thing, you've spoiled the prettiest dress I ever saw, for me! It was quite my ideal; and now I never want ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... "its only a boy we took to bring up. Nobody knows who his parents be. Brier got him at the foundling hospital when he went to sell his wheat to the city. He wasn't but two years old then, but he's ten now, and a great, big, lazy, idle, good-for-nothing boy, that'll never begin to pay for his keepin'. I never wanted the young 'un around, but Brier said he'd come handy by-and-by, and save a man's wages; so as we never had any of our own, we thought we'd keep him. Children are an awful sight ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... spent for bringing joy and recreation to the rest of us? Or again, if medical men need a living human victim to experiment upon, in order to conquer some devastating disease, why not pounce upon some good-for-nothing member of the community and force him to undergo the pain? The considerations enumerated in the preceding paragraph, however, bid us halt. Imagine the anxiety and the anguish that would be caused if some commission were free to determine who ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... Army. He was under Colonel Doniphan, and had control of subsistence in upper Mexico for some time. He had the regimental funds. Doniphan was irregular. He ran his regiment like a mess, and might order first this officer, then that, of the line or staff, to take on his free-for-all quartermaster trains. But he was honest. Banion was not. He had him broken. The charges were filed by Captain Woodhull. Well, is it any wonder there is no love lost? And is it any wonder I wouldn't train up with a thief, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... can have dinner. I don't know that it's ready, though; Bridget has had a toothache all day, and she's just good-for-nothing." ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... the basket, but you are not to let him. A few yards from the prison, I shall come running out of a side-street, seize the basket, give Angus a thump or two with it and bid him be off, for I am not going to have such good-for-noughts loitering about and making up to my sister. He will pretend to be cowed, and run away, and you will then abuse me in no measured terms for having left you without protector, in the first place, and for having behaved so badly to your dear Will in the second. When we are ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... thus an opportunity to scrutinize her through the interstices of my chair-back—so excited my girlish risibilities, that fear became stifled in suppressed laughter. "Amen" was scarce pronounced, when a shrill voice called out—"Come here, you little good-for-nothing—what's your name?" The inviting smile conveyed to me with these startling tones left no doubt who was addressed, and I instantly obeyed the really fervent call. Both the stout arms of my aunt were opened to receive me, but held me at their length, while—with a nervous sensibility that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... "I've lost my self-respect. I've lost heart. I'm a good-for-nothing worthless person. How am I to get out ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... She spent six weeks there, during which she wrote several letters to her husband, and cherished his answers as before. But we shall not follow the example of the Memoire, in repeating all these tit-for-tat endearments, but pursue our own object, which is to trace the style of occupation of people of their rank. And here we must observe, that, as far as we see in this process, the whole occupation of the Grimods and others was to make tours for their pleasure, and get up fetes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... manager, Department of Standards and Technology, Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), described the not-for-profit association and the national and international programs for standardization ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... Vernon. "Worse than good-for-nothing. She esteems such talents very lightly, and I shall even lose the small solace to my sorrows I had hoped they would have afforded me. Even this sad consolation is denied me. My Mary is indifferent to poetry—she ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... call'd of late; The cause of kings and emperors adjourn, And Europe's little balance drop awhile; For greater drop it: ponder and adjust The rival interests and contending claims Of life and death, of now and of for-ever; Sublimest theme; and needful as sublime. Thus great Eliza's oracles renown'd, Thus Walsingham and Raleigh, (Britain's boasts!) Thus every statesman thought that ever—died. There's inspiration in a sable hour, And Death's approach makes politicians ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... contrary!" cried the young man impetuously; "the old gentleman is kindness itself; I appear to be base and good-for-nothing; but I have no other choice. Make the best excuse for me that your good nature and your conscience will ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... nurse, infant Magnolia, and all, who had arrived at the castle, to walk out and see Lady Carrick-o'-Gunniol's 'Macnamara,' and perceived not the slip, such is the force of habit, though the family stared, and Lady C. laughed in an uncalled-for-way, at a sudden recollection of a tumble she once had, when a child, over a flower-bed; and broke out repeatedly, to my lord's chagrin and bewilderment, as they walked ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... their request I wish to say that the book as now published is merely a word-for-word reprint of my early effort to help to ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... she was howling, with a blow between each catch of her breath, "you shammocking, yaping, over-long good-for-nought. I will teach thee! I will baste ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is on my side; only stay abroad till I am a rich man, and my marriage made public, and then you may ask of me what you will. It's agreed, then; order the horses, we'll go round by Liverpool, and learn about the vessels. By the way, my good fellow, I hope you see nothing now of that good-for-nothing brother of yours?" ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he intentionally have killed a man, while numbers insist that he ought to be unhesitatingly condemned as guilty, his master will exclaim, "What can the poor wretch do? what can one expect from a good-for-nothing fellow like that?" But should any one else venture to do anything of the kind, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... five words in the second act, 'But she was mine vrow' without experiencing some moisture in the eyes." While the Galaxy, in a later year, for February, 1868, states: "His Rip Van Winkle is far nearer the ordinary conception of the good-for-nothing Dutchman than Mr. Jefferson's, whose performance is praised so much for its naturalness." The statement, by Oliver Bell Bunce, is followed by this stricture against Jefferson: "Jefferson, indeed, is a good example of our modern art. His naturalness, his unaffected ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... brutes, one with a knife, and both full of cocaine, probably. The white man in charge danced around on the outskirts, afraid to interfere—I don't blame him! Suddenly there was a cry, 'Here comes the Madam!' And there she was, galloping into that field, hell-for-leather, unwrapping her long-tailed whip as she came. When the negroes had had enough of it and were whimpering for mercy, she turned her attention to the foreman. But she didn't whip him. She said, her voice as calm as a May morning, 'Go and get your ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... broke in, with an indifferent smile. "I was standing in the door; he was full; he ought to have been kicked out; you done right; he's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, but don't talk to me about him. I pay him what is coming to him, board him for next to nothing, and there my responsibility ends. I'm not fighting his battles—huh, I guess not! ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... in this stiff mud, along roadways where there is frequently a little leakage from canals, grows the only western representative of the true heliotropes (Heliotropium curassavicum). It has flowers of faded white, foliage of faded green, resembling the "live-for-ever" of old gardens and graveyards, but even less attractive. After so much schooling in the virtues of water-seeking plants, one is not surprised to learn that its ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... years in the trade and knew how others had fared. I grant, in many cases, it was tit-for-tat, the man injured had done his best to injured others. With few exceptions the entire trade were ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... alehouse.—You never said one word of Goody Stoyte in your letter; but I suppose these winter nights we shall hear more of her. Does the Provost(3) laugh as much as he used to do? We reckon him here a good-for-nothing fellow.—I design to write to your Dean one of these days, but I can never find time, nor what to say.—I will think of something: but if DD(4) were not in Ireland I believe seriously I should not think of the place twice a year. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... David's good-for-nothing son Absalom had brought about the murder of one of his brothers, and had fled the country. His father weakly loved the brilliant blackguard, and would fain have had him back, but was restrained by a sense of kingly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Aunt Betsy grew very calm. She knew Helen was there and could now enjoy the distributing of the gifts, going up herself two or three times, and wondering why anybody should think of her, a good-for-nothing old woman. The skates and the smelling bottles both went safely to Sylvia and John, while Mrs. Deacon Bannister looked radiant when her name was called and she was made the recipient of a jar of butternut ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... she promptly named the highest-priced cigar she had in stock, a three-for-a-quarter brand, and then coolly announced that if he'd leave a dime on the show ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... young lady strivin' and strugglin' to regulate them big boxes, an' her good-for-nothin' father an' brother smokin' in the steerage, an' lavin' everything on her. Fine gintlemin, indeed! More like the Injins, that I'm tould lies in bed while their wives ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... good leave of you; wherever I may be, so long as I have life, I will pray God for you." The Cardinal was greatly irritated, and cried out in a rage: "Go where you choose; it is impossible to help people against their will." Some of his good-for-nothing courtiers who were present said: "That fellow sets great store on himself, for he is refusing three hundred ducats a year." Another, who was a man of talent, replied: "The King will never find his equal, and our Cardinal wants to cheapen him, as though he ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... within thy fresher-pools, Cayster, as in eager rivalry, About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray, Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run Into the billows, for sheer idle joy Of their mad bathing-revel. Then the crow With full voice, good-for-naught, inviting rain, Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone. Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task, Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth Of mouldy ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... if he should get Wulfnoth, quick or dead. But as they were thitherward, there came such a wind against them such as no man ere minded [remembered], and it all to-beat and to-brake the ships, and warped them on land: and soon came Wulfnoth and for-burned the ships. When this was couth [known] to the other ships where the king was, how the others fared, then was it as though it were all redeless, and the king fared him home, and the ealdormen, and the high witan, and forlet the ships thus lightly. And the folk that were on the ships brought ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... and I sez, "Well, you good-for-nothin' snipe you, instead of traipsin' all over the neighborhood tellin' of your wife's state, why hain't you to home buildin' a fire and heatin' soap stuns and ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... been true and good and faithful to you. Don't die and leave me no better than before. Tony, I do want to be a good woman once, a real-for-true married woman. Tony, here's the priest; say yes." And she wrung ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... Tearing hell-for-leather out of old Sol's little family. One'll be chasing the other, if my guess is any good. We want the ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... fiend out of hell-pit, the framing of evil, And Grendel forsooth the grim guest was hight, The mighty mark-strider, the holder of moorland, The fen and the fastness. The stead of the fifel That wight all unhappy a while of time warded, Sithence that the Shaper him had for-written. On the kindred of Cain the Lord living ever Awreaked the murder of the slaying of Abel. In that feud he rejoic'd not, but afar him He banish'd, The Maker, from mankind for the crime he had wrought. 110 But offspring uncouth thence were ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... We will hear no such words from you, sir, for a score of years. And now you will want all your wits to take your proper place at Court as sage counsellor and friend of the new King. Sure he will need his father's friends about him to teach him state-craft—he who has led such a gay, good-for-nothing life as a penniless rover, with scarce a sound coat ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... moments allowed her by Mern's hesitation. She always tried to impress a client favorably. "I don't presume to pick and choose when it comes to cases," she informed Craig. "I'm an All-for-the-good-cause Anne! But I hope—I'm allowed to hope, I suppose—I do hope that my next one is going to remember some of the lessons he learned at mother's knee. The last one had forgotten everything. ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... ladyship will find out yet what she gets by running away. She hasn't so much feeling for her children as a cow has for its calf. If she had, she would have come back long ago, to get them out of jail, and save all this expense and trouble. The good-for-nothing hussy! When she is caught, she shall stay in jail, in irons, for one six months, and then be sold to a sugar plantation. I shall see her broke in yet. What do you stand there for, Bill? Why don't you go off with the brat? Mind, now, that you don't let any of the niggers speak ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... O'Connor gets the floor once in a while and rips and raves about that 'trick-horse thing.' He thinks you know something. Engle says you don't and never did, but that Elisha is a dog, same as he said at first. Wouldn't surprise me none if they got into a free-for-all fight over there because they're all losers and all sore. Jock Merritt is sorer'n anybody; he bet some of his own money and he thinks they ought to give it back to him.... Now, just between ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... turmoil of it, and visit it but now and then, preferring the quiet of my country retreat; which shows that the bustling time of life is over with me, and that I am settling down into a sober, quiet, good-for-nothing old gentleman." ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... aunt is kept very happy by the patient, cheerful care of this good-for-nothing niece. Secondly, a crotchety uncle, for whom she reads, runs, writes, and sews so willingly that he cannot get on without her. Thirdly, various relations who are helped in various ways. Fourthly, one dear friend never forgotten, and a certain cousin cheered by praise which ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... our own language, we have two very fine tragedies on the story of Cleopatra: in that of Dryden, which is in truth a noble poem, and which he himself considered his masterpiece, Cleopatra is a mere common-place "all-for-love" heroine, full of constancy and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... throughout the country. As a late instance, we note that PUNCHINELLO has given in its adhesion to the only true and pure republican agricultural party, which it appropriately names the "Right Party." PUNCHINELLO was once a frivolous, good-for-nothing sheet, devoted to low jokes and witticisms. The conversion of its editor to the temperance cause is the reason of the recent change in its tenets. We bid it ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... idle, good-for-nothing fellow you must think me," said Philip, putting down little Mary, who had been sitting on his knee, and standing before ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... was brought me the next morning. Of the shock which it gave me to see my own name blotting the page with suggestions of hideous crime, I will not speak, but pass at once to the few gleams of added knowledge I was able to gather from those abominable columns. Arthur, the good-for-nothing brother, had returned from his wild carouse and had taken affairs in charge with something like spirit and a decent show of repentance for his own shortcomings and the mad taste for liquor which had led him away from home that night. Carmel ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... to the child, but scarcely had she finished her story, when the root of a For-Get-Me-Not caught the drop and sucked her in, that she might become a floweret, and twinkle brightly as a blue star on the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... monition and triumph, Martha announced that the good-for-nothing chap was off with a valuable parcel of Mr. Calcott's, and the police were after him; with much more about his former idle habits,—frequenting of democratic oratory, public-houses, and fondness for bad company and strolling actors. Meek and easily cowed, Charlotte only opened ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... idle, monotonous years, had had their effect. I had grown hardened and had come to accept my fate, at first rebelliously, then with more of Lute's peculiar kind of philosophy. Circumstances had doomed me to be a good-for-nothing, a gentleman loafer without the usual excuse—money—and, as it was my doom, I forced myself to accept it, if not with pleasure, at least with resignation. And I determined to get whatever pleasure there might be in it. So, when I saw the majority of the human race, each with a purpose ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... about this, and Im-Hanna sided with me. She rated Khalid, saying, 'You're a good-for-nothing loafer; you don't deserve the mojadderah you eat.' And I remember how she took me aside that evening and whispered something about books, and Khalid's head, and Mar-Kizhayiah.[1] Indeed, Im-Hanna seriously believed that Khalid should be taken to Mar-Kizhayiah. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... father, sends his five good-for-nothing sons out into the world for one year to learn a craft. They return at the appointed time. During the year the eldest son has learned thieving; the second has learned boat-building; the third, how to shoot with the cross-bow; the fourth has learned of an herb that will cause the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... frowning and casting an angry glance at his son. "Your goings-on are not what I shall find money for any longer. There's my grandfather had his stables full o' horses, and kept a good house, too, and in worse times, by what I can make out; and so might I, if I hadn't four good-for-nothing fellows to hang on me like horse-leeches. I've been too good a father to you all—that's what it is. But ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... the whole story, adding that she supposed the old lady had come to herself and got tired waiting; in time, however, the baby was missed, and that threw a new light on affairs. Mrs. Wilkie was frantic; she denounced Bridget as a good-for-nothing, refused to sit down to dinner, and set off with her mother in the ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... jokes with which this good-for-nothing young man adorned his speech made it sound tenfold more hideous than I can do. Even his mother shrank away from him, in terror and amaze at his levity, and cried aloud in her fear so that instantly ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... have stopped on the way, you good-for-nothing. Sweet Grass could not have kept you all this time," ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade
... looked proudly around at the clustering neighbors, for by now every denizen of Darktown had apparently been drawn to the spot, all wild to hear what had happened. Her look was in the shape of a challenge. It seemed to say: "Dere now, what do yuh good-for-nothin' coons think of my Brutus, after hearin' dese white boys say as how he's a real hero? Don't any ob yuh ebber ag'in ask me why I gives him dat name. Guess I knows my history, an' didn't I see it in him when he was a little baby? Dar ain't another ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... mechanically, and started for-ard. The Etna had absorbed him into her system; he was initiated already to his role of a driven beast; but tenacious as an altar fire there glowed yet within him the warmth of his anger against Tom Mowbray. It was secret, beyond the reach of Mr. Fant's fist; the fist was only another item ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... place to place and from land to land, seeing people at their work and making their lives happy. When men first saw his fair boyish face and his soft white hands, they sneered and said he was only an idle, good-for-nothing fellow. But when they heard him speak, they were so charmed that they stood, spellbound, to listen; and ever after that they made his words their law. They wondered how it was that he was so wise; for it seemed to them that he did nothing but ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... advances to an infinite antithesis—that, namely, between the Idea in its free, universal form, in which it exists for itself, and the contrasted form of abstract introversion, reflection on itself, which is formal existence-for-self, personality, formal freedom, such as belongs to Spirit only. The universal Idea exists thus as the substantial totality of things on the one side, and as the abstract essence of free volition on the other. This reflection of the mind on itself is individual self-consciousness—the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... ought to know me. You ought to have heard Ike speaking of his friend Ricketty. You ought to have heard him telling of what a good-for-nothing old fool I am. If you are Becky, then you and I are ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... Tuileries he wearies people with his fancies; men like you should avoid the conversation of all those good-for-nothing pedants. For my part I have no fear of troubling you, since I am come, sir, to ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... 'See ye nought That young man, that hath shoon bought, And strong leather to do hem clout [patch], And grease to smear hem all about? He weeneth to live hem to wear: But, by my soul, I dare well swear, His wretched life he shall for-let [lose], Ere he come to his own ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... see now what good-for-nothings you are! Why do you strut and turn up your noses as if you were the lords of creation? Well, I am going to give you orders. Go up and dress. Get some travelling money, and ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... weariness of my aunt's favorite subject. I had been in want of just such an article as an "efficient person" ever since I had taken charge of my father's menage; and after undergoing almost martyrdom with slip-shod, thriftless, good-for-nothing "help," as we Americans, with such delicate consideration, term our serving maids, I had come to the conclusion that indifferent "help" was an unavoidable evil, and that the best must be made of the poor, miserable instruments ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... bomb!" she stammered, regarding the thing fearfully; "a real, honest-for-true bomb. And it is meant to carry death and destruction to loyal supporters of our government. There's no doubt of that. But—" The thoughts that followed so amazing an assertion were too bewildering to be readily classified. They involved a long string of conjectures, ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... "Farewell, ungrateful country!" he cried. "But for her it would cost me nought to leave you for ever, and all my kith and kin, and—the mother that bore me, and—my playmates, and my little native town. Farewell, fatherland—welcome the wide world! omne so-lum for-ti p p-at-r-a." And with these brave words in his mouth he drooped suddenly with arms and legs all weak, and sat down and sobbed bitterly upon ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... helpless good-for-nothing! who can't even pick up her own handkerchief! that thing wants to be mistress ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... example, I learned to speak Greek of them, and I cannot say who was my teacher, or to whom I am to attribute my knowledge of Greek, if not to those good-for-nothing ...
— Alcibiades I • (may be spurious) Plato
... general thing but fish, a pair of canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away; we were strange and picturesque intruders; and out of people's wonder sprang a sort of light and passing intimacy all along our route. There is nothing but tit-for-tat in this world, though sometimes it be a little difficult to trace: for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has never yet been a settling-day since things were. You get entertainment pretty ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was? why, because I had not the key. And I am sure there's nothing in it. I was in with the skipper after the long-legged puritan was out, and I could see only squashed fruit, broken boxes, and old good-for-nothing rags. Whatever had been worth moving was moved; but that room will mount as high as any of them, I warrant me. I laid a good lot of combustibles to the door. Ah! there was the gleam of a spear, to my thinking." ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... "Why, you young good-for-nothing, if you have not venison, it is not from any will not to take it; you are out in pursuit of it, that is clear. Come, come, you've the wrong person to deal with: my orders are to take up all poachers, and take ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... gods or men. It was very hard on Socrates that the faults of his pupils should be charged against him; but Aristophanes had set all Athens laughing by a comedy called "The Clouds," in which a good-for-nothing young man, evidently meant for Alkibiades, gets his father into debt by buying horses, and, under the teaching of Socrates, learns both to cheat his creditors and to treat respect for his father as ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you run that state of yours right up to the handle. What's all this trouble about a two-for-a-cent postmastership?" ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... world; and they are genuine. The hostess has me take a basket and go with her while she cuts it full of flowers for us to bring home; and, as we walk, she tells the story of the place. She is a tenant-for-life; it is entailed. Her husband was wounded in South Africa. Her heir is her nephew. The home, of course, will remain in the family forever. No, they don't go to London much in recent years: why should they? But they ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... that night at dinner, "where's my shot-gun?" When she told him, he said: "After dinner you get it, load it with salt, and put it in the corner by the front door." Then he added to the assembled family: "For boys—dirty-faced, good-for-nothing, long-legged boys! I'm going to have a law passed making an open season for boys in this place from January first ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... craziest performance. He went hell-for-leather over a piece of ground which was being watered with H.E., but by the mercy of heaven nothing hit him. He took some fearsome tosses in shell-holes, but partly erect and partly on all fours he did the fifty yards and tumbled into a Turkish trench ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... it; so, taking advantage of his mother's and Polly's absence, he strolled into the room, and, seating himself on a high, hard chair, folded his hands, crossed his legs, and asked for a story with the thirsting-for-knowledge air which little boys wear in ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... crying!—to look after. Then young Maudie went wrong and took her sister Alice with her; the two boys emigrated, and young Jim went to India with the army, and Ethel, the youngest, married a good-for-nothing little waiter who died of ulcers the year little Lennie was born. And now ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... becoming excited, "she refused because she had too much good sense: aye, and too much common decency to accept. It is all very well for us fortunate good-for-nothings to resort ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... with it or sends it, how is she paid?-She gets anything she asks for-either goods at ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... at all uncommon for girls in this part of the country to marry before they are that old. But I know I'm not half good enough for you, Elsie. A king might be proud to win you for his bride, and I'm only a poor, good-for-nothing cripple, not worth anybody's acceptance." And he turned away his face, with something that sounded ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... they send their boats round to his landing, so that the crews may bring the vegetables from his garden; informing the two captains, at the same time, that his rascals—slaves and soldiers—had become so abominably lazy and good-for-nothing of late, that he could not make them work by ordinary inducements, and did not have the heart to be ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... to adorn the person, utterly negligent of the ornaments of the mind and heart—whose reading never extends to instructive and useful books, but is confined exclusively to sickly novels and silly love-stories;—how long will it be before she will become as careless and good-for-nothing as they? ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... took off his hat and bowed gravely; Mrs. Norton, the vicar's wife, smilingly stopped Mavis and spoke as if she had been addressing a social equal; then they received greetings from old Mr. Bates, the corn merchant, and from young Richard Bates, his swaggering good-for-nothing son. And then, as passengers gathered more thickly, it became quite like a public reception. "Ma'arnin', sir." "Good day, Mr. Dale." "I hope I see you ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... inherited from her a few thousand pounds. I felt very miserable, and I happened to be at the moment idle. A friend persuaded me to go to Monte Carlo. That fortnight, Madame, changed my life—made me what the English call 'an idle good-for-nothing.' Can you wonder that I warn you against ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... be there and swallow him up at a mouthful. He kept away from the shallow places in hot weather, lest the sun should dry them up. When he saw a shadow on the water, he said to himself, 'Halloo! here are the good-for-nothing fishermen with their nets!' and immediately he sculled away and got under the banks, where he sat trembling in all his scales; and when he saw a tempting fly skimming on the water, or a nice ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... free-trader commonly desired was a mitigation of protection and the establishment of reasonable rates. Godkin, Schurz, Sumner of Yale, David A. Wells, Edward Atkinson, and Henry D. Lloyd taught the tariff-for-revenue theory wherever they could find listeners. Wells wrote on "The Creed of Free Trade," in the Atlantic Monthly in 1875, and was sure he had found the issue of 1876. But in neither this nor the next campaign did the parties face ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... bended knees, painted in crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and parry, moving their weapons? Davus is a scoundrel and a loiterer; but you have the character of an exquisite and expert connoisseur in antiquities. If I am allured by a smoking pasty, I am a good-for-nothing fellow: does your great virtue and soul resist delicate entertainments? Why is a tenderness for my belly too destructive for me? For my back pays for it. How do you come off with more impunity, since you hanker ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Parliament he cals His fellow mat's, and minions to his fame, Shewes them long lookt for land, and how it brauls, Repulsing backe the billowes as they came, Much he triumphes, and passed griefe for-stals With present ioy (sorrow lights pleasures flame:) And whilst his hopes of Happy-Fortune sings, Misfortune by, controls ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... hallie houses slea; Braste, lyke a cloude, from whence doth come the flame, 615 Lyche torrentes, gushynge downe the mountaines, bee. And whanne alonge the grene yer champyons flee, Swefte as the rodde for-weltrynge[89] levyn-bronde, Yatte hauntes the flyinge mortherer oere the lea, Soe flie oponne these royners of the londe. 620 Lette those yatte are unto yer battayles fledde, Take slepe eterne uponne a ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... granted that his speech was wise, But, when a glance they caught Of his slim grace and woman's eyes, They laughed and called him good-for-naught." ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... for the best. One of these boys, like many, more fond of play than work, got tired of turning these cocks day by day, and conceived the idea of making the engine do it for itself. This idle boy—we will not call him good-for-nothing, as he proved good for a great deal in one way—was named Humphrey Potter, and one day he fixed strings to the beam, which opened and shut the valves, and so allowed him to play, little thinking this was one of the greatest boons he could possibly have bestowed on the world at large, ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... of Arabic and Jewish origin. To this group belong the works of Aristotle, the body of Roman Law, and the medical works of Galen, Hippocrates, and various Arabic and Jewish physicians. In the main, these had been hitherto unknown in western Europe, or at least practically for-gotten since the days of the Roman Empire. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they were collected and made generally accessible to students. Those not originally written in Latin were now translated into Latin; manuscript copies were multiplied ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... G." might stand for "Pay-for-it and Get-it," or "Pour-it and Guzzle-it." A Correspondent has suggested that solution of the initial problem might possibly be found in the names of Pommery and Gre'—No! So common-place a suggestion is evidently, and on the face of it, absurd. Not in this spirit did the Pickwick Club treat ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... of the day: the industrial warfare of the sixties was a free-for-all. A mere reference to the status of manufactures in which the trust is now the all-prevailing fact will make the contrast clear. In 1865 thousands of independent companies were drilling oil in Pennsylvania and there were more than two hundred which were refining the product. Nearly four hundred ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... conversing rationally. He appeared to know enough English to get the gist of my passport, but handed it back with the information that I should have official Guatemalan permission to exist within the confines of his eighteen-for-a-dollar country. ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck |
