"Ignoramus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of which he was ignorant—though if ignorance of language were a qualification he might have been a consul at home. His easy familiarity with great men was beautiful to see, and when Philip learned what a tremendous underground influence this little ignoramus had, he no longer wondered at the queer ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... place for them!" exclaimed Massachusetts, "though I am awfully sorry for her. Oh! you lucky, lucky girl! and you dear, precious, stupid ignoramus, not to know poison dogwood ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... during a long while the instructor of my tender age; my good mother, to whom I owe everything, and who set so great store on my good deportment, and did not want me to be (that is what she used to say) an illustrious ignoramus, put that book into my hands, though I was then little more than a child at the breast. It has been like my conscience to me, and has whispered into my ear many good hints and excellent maxims for my behavior and for the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wear long trains, (talking of trains, that's the Charing Cross Metropolitan Station—I've something to tell you about that), and I never play lawn-tennis. I can't cook an omelette. I can't even set a broken limb! There's an ignoramus ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... jail. She told him Stan hadn't written to Cousin Oscar about no jail, and that I wasn't to tell him either. Now goes Cousin Oscar on a beeline to tell Uncle how dreadful Stanley has went and disgraced the family; and Uncle will want to know how he heard of it. 'Why,' says Oscar, 'an old ignoramus from Arizona, named Johnson—friend of Stanley's—he told me about it. He came up here to get me to help Stanley out; wanted me to go out ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... wouldn't let a little affair like one election drive you out of public life? It was so obvious that you were made the victim for Horlock's growing unpopularity in the country. Haven't you realised that yourself—or perhaps you don't care to talk about these things to an ignoramus such as ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... us from one side of the bed to the other; no sleep, no rest. The poor Crippled wrist, too, never left one moment in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at, if its pains returned? The surgeon then was to be called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This is not a world to live at random in, as you do. To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are for ever exposing us, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... entering his library in the vital centre of a delectable refutation of an ignoramus—"I suppose it's no use looking to you for sympathy in a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... influence of Chrissy's story-telling power. Indeed, when he did somewhat recover from it, his fancy created fine visions of what it would be to have such a storyteller at Bourhope during the long, dark nights of winter and the endless days of summer. Bourhope was no ignoramus. He had some acquaintance with "Winter's Tales" and summer pastorals, but his reading was bald and tame to this inspiration. He thought to himself it would really be as good as a company of players purely for his own behoof, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... personalities and who professes to desire their transformation and yet who has no desire to give them better homes, better cities, better family relationships, better health, better economic resources, better recreations, better books and better schools, is either an ignoramus who does not see what these things mean in the growth of souls, or else an unconscious hypocrite who does not really care so much about the souls of men as he says ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... Davies. I relate it as a good instance of one of his minor peculiarities. He was utterly without that didactic pedantry which yachting has a fatal tendency to engender In men who profess it. He had tossed me the chart without a thought that I was an ignoramus, to whom it would be Greek, and who would provide him with an admirable subject to drill and lecture, just as his neglect of me throughout the morning had been merely habitual and unconscious independence. In the second place, master of his mtier, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... "Lincoln is an ignoramus, a filthy story-teller, a monster. Seward is the brains of the administration. Without Seward, ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... more effectually ruin the dramatic art than to have you write a play. People, seeing your work, would say, here, this will never do. The stage must be discouraged at all costs. A hypocrite throws the ministry into disgrace, an ignoramus brings shame upon education, and an unpopular lawyer gives the bar a bad name. I think you are just the man to ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... himself "IGNORAMUS," writes to inquire "The address of a Society called 'The London French Polishers.'" He says, "I want my French polished up a bit before ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... which Nicolas de la Salle, whom he had supplanted as intendant, wrote to Ponchartrain that D'Artaguette had deceived him, being no better than Bienville himself. La Salle further declared that Barrot, the surgeon of the colony, was an ignoramus, and that he made money by selling the medicines supplied by the King to cure his Louisianian subjects. Such were the transatlantic workings of the paternalism ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... halves; we should not be long without our money.' I wanted no further encouragement to meditate the ruin of the high-crowned hat. I went nearer to him, in order to take a closer survey; never was such a bungler; he made blots upon blots; God knows, I began to feel some remorse at winning of such an ignoramus, who knew so little of the game. He lost his reckoning; supper was served up; and I desired him to sit next me. It was a long table, and there were at least five-and-twenty in company, notwithstanding the landlord's promise. The most execrable repast that ever was begun being finished, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... I can conceive of a far less important English influence upon our social customs. But in neither case, domination. That England dominates our finance, our industry, our politics, is just now, especially, the suspicion of a paranoiac, or the idea of an ignoramus. ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... of these Scientific Congresses, they were becoming every year more festive, and, at all events to the ignoramus outsiders who joined them, more pleasant. My good cousin and old friend, then Colonel, now General, Sir Charles Trollope, was at Venice that autumn. I said on meeting him, "Now the first thing is to, make you a member." "Me! a member of a Scientific ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... one of the longest he had ever read, and the most tedious. Somebody seems to have attacked him and his Characters. A second edition, in 1631, was entitled "New Essays and Characters, with a new Satyre in defence of the Common Law, and Lawyers: mixt with Reproofe against their enemy Ignoramus." ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Burnamy. "You never asked me anything about it. You told me what you wanted done, and I did it. How could I believe you were such an ignoramus as not to know the a b c of the thing you were talking about?" He added, in cynical contempt, "But you needn't worry. You can make it right with the managers by spending a little more money than ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... think, my dear friend," said the king, "that a great institution like the Hamburg Botanical Gardens would let a man of your worth perish rather than pay his ransom of L600? Happy young man! You now see the value of a sound, scientific education. Had you been an utter ignoramus as I am, I wouldn't have asked ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... mostly in bows and arrows, and as creatures of romance I admired them greatly. Persons such as I and my parents were generally depicted in this connection as fleeing from them. And it did strike me as an ignoramus kind of thing that I should be called a native. When I was reasoned with to the effect that I was a native of Indiana, my resentment but grew. There were no ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... naval stores in American ships, and condemning them as contraband. It makes also a concession to England to seize provisions and other articles in American ships. Other articles are all other articles, and none but an ignoramus, or something worse, would have put such a phrase into a treaty. The condition annexed in this case is, that the provisions and other articles so seized, are to be paid for at a price to be agreed upon. Mr. Washington, as President, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... average country gentleman of his time, was a profound ignoramus. What knowledge had been drilled into him in boyhood, he had since taken pains to forget. He was familiar with the punctilio of duelling, the code of regulations for fencing, the rules of athletic sports, and the intricacies ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... in me on which they could fasten. The doctors of medicine bade me consider what I must do to save my body, and offered me quack cures for imaginary diseases. I replied that I was not a hypochondriac; so they called me Ignoramus and went their way. The doctors of divinity bade me consider what I must do to save my soul; but I was not a spiritual hypochondriac any more than a bodily one, and would not trouble myself about that either; so ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... she answered, with exultation and heightened color, "but it seems absurd to suppose that such a little ignoramus as I ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... of light would have been very conspicuous in those days. I didn't pose for such a part. In fact, if I had not succeeded in appearing like a partial ignoramus I should have been obliged to go into a monastery, for in those days the monks were the only people who knew anything. They expected to do all the teaching that was done; but, for all that, a few scholars cropped up now and then, and here and there, who did not care to have monks ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... Your feeling that you haven't learned anything delights me, too. It proves that you have learned a great deal. It is only the ignoramus who thinks he is wise; the wise man knows that he is an ignoramus. That's a platitude, but it is none the less true. I have cold comfort for you: the more you learn, the less confident you will be of your own learning, the more utterly ignorant you will feel. I have ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... think we have been most successful in imbibing sherry cobbler, which you get here in great perfection. By the way, tell Cooke [his brother-in-law], with my kindest regards, that — is a lying old thief, many of the things he told me about Macgillivray, e.g., being an ignoramus in natural history, etc. etc., having proved to be lies. He is at any rate a very good ornithologist, and, I can testify, is exceedingly zealous in his vocation as a collector. As in these (points) Mr. —'s statements are unquestionably false, I must ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... speech in Congress exhibiting and exploding General Harrison's military record. He was very reluctant to undertake it, but at last yielded, and, after elaborate preparation, made an argument loud and long, to show that General Harrison was a military ignoramus. The result was both comic and pathetic. There was then in Congress the most famous stump-speaker of his time, and perhaps of all times, a man of great physical, intellectual, and moral vigor; powerful in argument, sympathetic in manner, of infinite wit and humor, and, unfortunately ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... students engaged in the agreeable relaxation of taking a hair of the same dog that bit them, after a liberal compotation on the preceding night. Third place, as a scholar! Well! who may he thank for that, I interrogate. Not one Denis O'Donegan!—O no; the said Denis is an ignoramus, and knows nothing of the classics. Well, be it so. All I say is, that I wish I had one classical lick at their provost, I would let him know what the master of a plantation seminary (*—a periphrasis for hedge-school) could do when brought to ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... too much for Italy to endure patiently the sight of little parliamentary cabals and municipal wranglings, although they also are necessary in this day as conspiracies and battles were in mine. I am not fit for your roomful of ministers and learned men and pretty women: the former would think me an ignoramus, and the latter—what would afflict me much more—a pedant.... Rather, if your Excellency really wants to show yourself and your children to your father's old protege of Mazzinian times, find a few days to come here next spring. You shall have some very bare ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... trying to be soothing, as he believed it was always best to be with women,—to tell the truth he was an ignoramus where women were concerned,—"I think it would be better if you didn't look at them. There are reasons why—" he ambled on like this, stupid man that he was, till the lady naturally insisted upon seeing the pictures without a ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... of that is the post-script. It will be just fine to have those dogs along. I suppose Mrs. Calvert sent them up from Baltimore to Deerhurst. But if I were you, Dolly Doodles, I wouldn't let that ignoramus preach to me like he does to you in that letter. He's a prig, that's what he is, and I hate a ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... an ignoramus," said others, "who, after having made a perfect rattle out of the organ in his own church, comes here to profane ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... studied some and read a great deal more. There are but few books in the village library that I have not read more or less thoroughly, and some of them many times. Because I was a careless, conceited fellow a few weeks since, it does not follow that I'm an ignoramus." ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... keep his eyes off this girl who had already completed the high school course which he had not yet begun; besides, she had learned a lot of other things which would be beyond him to ever reach. Even though he were an ignoramus, he could bask in the light of her greater learning. She ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... dear fellow,' Shubin went on, 'you're a clever person, a philosopher, third graduate of the Moscow University; it's dreadful arguing with you, especially for an ignoramus like me, but I tell you what; besides my art, the only beauty I love is in women... in ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... education. He bought books for me, not only school books, but choice books to read, stories, poems and plays, and he has talked with me a great deal, and told me about places and people and authors, and so has saved me from being a total ignoramus." ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the ignoramus of three months ago knows the peril, knows it well, without serving any apprenticeship. Every stranger who appears is kept at a distance, without distinction of size or race. If the threatening gesture be not enough, the keeper sallies forth ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... raise a man above his social level, and that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... the third floor? If ya want the sixth floor ya can ride. Third floor! My Gawd! Third floor!" And on and on he mutters and up and up I go, all the proud feelings of owning the world stripped from me—exposed before the multitudes as an ignoramus who didn't know any better than to ride in the elevator when she was bound only for the third floor. "Third floor," continues muttering the elevator man. At last there is no one left in the elevator but the muttering man and me. "Well," I falter, chewing ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... he read the letters first, and then heard their tale and expressed his wonder that men so wise and mannerly should take such pains to court an ignoramus and recluse, to undertake such unwonted and uncongenial cares, but they must be well aware that he was a monk and under authority. He had to deal not with the primate and chief of the English Church in this matter, but with ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... martyrdom. All this was as nothing. Louis Ulbach, this very same Louis Ulbach, was employed by a newspaper where he was sure to please by insulting me, and the very first thing he did was to give me a kick, such a kick as twenty horses covered with sleigh-bells could not give. He called me "ignoramus," and wondered what "this fellow" meant by his literary drivelling. The most curious part of the whole business is, that he did not write the article, all he did was to sign it! Four years, and a scratch given his vanity, had proved enough ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... said the official politely, "because a Missie Ammal comes from the bungalow, does it prove that the goddess was a Missie Ammal?" The other women agreed with him, and snubbed the ignoramus, who ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... is," he said, "there would be trembling in the heart of a very great man when the nine cravens returned without me. For I am no shaveling ignoramus, but a gentleman of birth; aye, and one who, though poor, is a near cousin of the marshal himself. I warrant the rascals who ran away would smart right soundly for leaving me behind. For Gilles de Sille is no simpleton. He knows more than is written ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... leisurely way along George Street the other day, towards Strunalls, where I get my cigars, and had arrived opposite No. —, when I suddenly noticed, just ahead of me, a tall lady of remarkably graceful figure, clad in a costume which, even to an ignoramus in fashions like myself, seemed extraordinarily out of date. In my untechnical language it consisted of a dark blue coat and skirt, trimmed with black braid. The coat had a very high collar, turned over to show a facing ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... nations, in the great amphitheatre of the Sorbonne—"an imprecatory meeting," he called it. Perrotin promptly accepted, and professed himself overcome by the honour. His servile tone before this licensed government ignoramus made a striking contrast with his bold statements a few moments before, and Clerambault, somewhat taken aback, thought of ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... sir," answered Dick. "If we don't it shall not be my fault. And although I am rather an ignoramus at present in respect of a sailor's work generally, you will find me both willing ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... servants turn to save their stake, Glean from his plenty, and his wants forsake; But let some Judas near his person stay, To swallow the last sop, and then betray. Make London independent of the crown; A realm apart; the kingdom of the town. Let ignoramus juries find no traitors[3], And ignoramus poets scribble satires. And, that your meaning none may fail to scan, Do what in coffee-houses you began,— Pull down the master, and set up ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... "He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... abstraction, not a matter of expediency, but something concrete, a great working philosophy. This fact had enriched his speeches, and thus it came about that when Mr. Bolitho read them, he discovered that he was fighting not with an ignoramus, but with a man with a powerful mind, a man who, given reasonable circumstances, would be ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... Magdalene!"—"What a to-do you make! Come, tell me, in good faith, what I must do!" David has now the chance he loves. Here is one who knows nothing whatever of the things it is his pride to have learned at least the names of, the things to a Nuremberger worth knowing among all. The ignoramus shall be properly dazzled. David strikes an attitude. "Myself," he informs Walther, "I am learning the Art from the greatest master in Nuremberg, Hans Sachs. For a full year I have received his instructions. Shoe-making and poetry I learn simultaneously. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... manner in which that object was being pursued points to a very strong and definite motive. Then the tactics adopted point to considerable forethought and judgment. They are not the tactics of a fool or an ignoramus. We may criticize the closed carriage as a tactical mistake, calculated to arouse suspicion, but we have to weigh it ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... her the chere amie of Mr. Thackeray. But your skill in "dress" settles the question of sex. I think, however, some woman must have assisted in the school scenes of Jane Eyre, which have a striking air of truthfulness to me—an ignoramus, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... excitement at the election; one of the members of the old Board had been called "an ignoramus," in the stress of battle, and being much concerned and mystified asked a neighbour what the term signified, adding, no doubt thinking of a hippopotamus, that he believed it was some kind of animal! His knowledge of zoology was probably as limited as ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... marry the daughter of the old one! And, as Handel either did not approve of the lady, or of matrimony generally (and in fact he never was married), he promptly retired from the competition. At first, no one suspected the youth's talents, for he amused himself by pretending to be an ignoramus, until one day the accompanyist on the harpsichord (then the most important instrument in an orchestra) was absent, and young Handel took his place, astonishing everybody by his masterly touch. Probably this discovery aroused ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... theology," replied the emperor; "hold your tongue; you are an ignoramus. In six months I should get to know more than you. Ah! the commission votes thus! I shall not get the worst of it. I shall dissolve the Council and all will be finished. It is of small consequence ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... scarcely speaks, but lies patient and still. He looked in at her this morning, but she did not lift her eyes. Oh, she is so young to die! And she has so much to do. She has not even begun to do yet. She has so much of herself to do with, she is not an ignoramus like me. Her life has been one strong, pure influence Hollis said to-night. He is sure she will get well. He says her father and mother pray for her night and day. And his Aunt Helen said such a beautiful thing yesterday. She was talking to Hollis, for she ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... things, and also the implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick up to the plow which makes it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. I saw at the same time a row of skulls, from the lowest skull that has ever been found; skulls from the central portion of Africa, skulls from the bushmen of Australia, up to the best skulls of the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Toledo to the other to hear you. He wishes me to let him know if you decide on rejoining your friends, because Don Antolin in speaking to him sets you down as a madman and a heretic who does not know what to be after. But he is an ignoramus who, after studying for his profession, can do no better than sell tickets and squeeze ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... my host, "but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our Maisons de Sante, it is clear that some ignoramus has misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its operation, is incomparably the most effectual ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... dracunculus, dracunculi; echinus, echini; magus, magi. But such as have properly become English words, may form the plural regularly in es; as, chorus, choruses: so, apparatus, bolus, callus, circus, fetus, focus, fucus, fungus, hiatus, ignoramus, impetus, incubus, isthmus, nautilus, nucleus, prospectus, rebus, sinus, surplus. Five of these make the Latin plural like the singular; but the mere English scholar has no occasion to be told which they are. Radius makes the plural radii or ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my married sisters' ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... write, he must learn to draw. We cannot afford to let our young folks grow up without this power. A new French book is just now much talked about, with this droll title, "The Life of a Wise Man, by an Ignoramus." It is the story of the great Pasteur, whose discoveries in respect to life have made him world renowned. I turned to the book, eager to find out the key to such success, and I found the old story—"the child was father ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... appeared, or would: three or four times in my company he was put upon to do the work, but could not; at last he said he could do nothing as long as I was in presence. I at last shewed him his error, but left him as I found him, a pretending ignoramus. ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... flummery) every night for his supper. His friend having asked his opinion of politics, he says he really knows nothing about them; he had been so completely engrossed by his own business that he has not had time to read even a newspaper. But, though an ignoramus in politics, he has been studying lime, which is more to his purpose. If his friend can give him any information about that, he will promise to read a newspaper now and then in the ensuing session of Parliament, for the ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... quidem tempore quo intus est, hiemis tempestati non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. Unde si haec nova doctrina certius aliquid attulit merito esse sequenda videtur." "Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum," book ii. cap. 13, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... but legal notices, that I have been afraid the Latin I want to write might prove rather barbaro-forensic than Ciceronian. He is swallowed up, body and soul, in law; he eats, drinks, plays (at the card table) Law, nothing but Law. He acts Ignoramus in the play so thoroughly, that you w'd swear that in the inmost marrow of his head (is not this the proper anatomical term?) there have housed themselves not devils but pettifoggers, to bemuddle with their noisy chatter his own and his friends' wits. He brought here, 'twas ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... carriages. Evidently Mr. Harding had attractive powers, and Malling began to wonder whether he would have any difficulty in obtaining the seat he wanted, in some corner from which he could get a good view both of the chancel and the pulpit. Were vergers "bribable"? What an ignoramus he was ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... whom I have taught that sublime language. The rascal knows it better than I do. The worst of it is, that with his modern reading he is forgetting it; and some fine day, without ever having suspected it, he will find out that he is an ignoramus. For, Senor Don Jose, my nephew has taken to studying the newest books and the most extravagant theories, and it is Flammarion here and Flammarion there, and nothing will do him but that the stars are full of people. Come, I fancy that you two are going to be very good friends. Jacinto, beg this ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... ordine musculi unius lacertus subito subsilit, nec regulariter continuoque movetur, sed nunc semel aut bis, nunc minime intra idem tempus subsilit; an causa irritans in sensorio communi, an in musculo ipse palpitante Quaerenda sit, ignoramus. Nosologiae Methodicae, Vol. I. ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson
... for the rich."—Every species of covetousness is stimulated by this spectacle. The profusion of offices and the anticipation of vacancies "has excited the thirst for command, stimulated self-esteem, and inflamed the hopes of the most inept. A rude and grim presumption renders the fool and the ignoramus unconscious of their insignificance. They have deemed themselves capable of anything, because the law granted public functions merely to capacity. There has appeared in front of one and all an ambitious perspective; the soldier thinks only of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... become very learned, my dear," replied Bastarnay; "but I, who am an ignoramus, I should fancy that a child who ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... of medicine is subject to great variations. It is only of real value when, free from all charlatanism, it rests on a sufficiently scientific basis; for the art of an ignoramus falls into error and employs inappropriate methods; on the other hand, the art of a charlatan has for its object the purse of the patient. It is common to meet with physicians who have a good practical experience of art without possessing scientific knowledge, others who ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... establishment to remain a passive spectator of the actions of others, and began pushing right and left. "Get along, get away ye vagabonds!" he politely cried: "you little shrimps! what business have you to stop the way?—Alfred, you ignoramus! ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... particular man of science whom it accuses of conscious and wholesale plagiarism [there is no such accusation in 'Evolution, Old and New'] than it would be to men of science in general for requiring such elementary instruction on some of the most famous literature in science from an upstart ignoramus, who, until two or three years ago, considered himself a painter by ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... brief span allotted to us upon earth to acquire a certain number of facts. It is monstrously absurd to sacrifice our best years in stuffing so many facts into the brain, in order to avoid being laughed at by a few thin-minded pedants as an ignoramus. Some consolation, at least, might surely be derived from the reflection that many of the greatest geniuses whom the world has produced were profoundly ignorant as to ninety per cent. of the things which are considered to be indispensable ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... if you would occupy yourselves with these works before any others. Afterwards we will study together the MSS. of Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemy, of Olympiodorus and Stephanus, which I discovered at Ravenna, in a vault where they have been locked up since the reign of that ignoramus Theodosius who has ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... could be said in its favor, in spite of the pressing need of better transportation for coal, cotton, merchandise, and passengers, the bill failed. Such was the blindness, and ignorance, and prejudice of the House of Commons! Think of calling George Stephenson "an ignoramus, a fool, a maniac," in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Ignoramus.— N. ignoramus, dunce; wooden spoon; no scholar. [insulting terms for ignorant person: see also imbecility 499, folly 501] moron, imbecile, idiot; fool, jerk, nincompoop, asshole [vulgar]. [person with superficial knowledge] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... on the lines of Ibn Khallikan (i. 476, etc.) and other representative literati, as our sole authortties for pure Arabic, the precedence in following order. First of all ranks the Jahili (Ignoramus) of The Ignorance, the : these pagans left hemistichs, couplets, pieces and elegies which once composed a large corpus and which is now mostly forgotten. Hammad al-Rawiyah, the Reciter, a man of Persian descent (ob. A.H. 160777) who first collected the Mu'allakat, once recited ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin— An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure—and I must ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... Achitophel was published, the Medal, a Satire, was likewise given to the public. This piece is aimed against sedition, and was occasioned by the striking of a medal, on account of the indictment against the earl of Shaftsbury for high treason being found ignoramus by the grand jury, at the Old Bailey, November 1681: For which the Whig party made great rejoicings by ringing of bells, bonfires, &c. in all parts of London. The poem is introduced with a very satirical epistle to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... nobis, duo Graeci et tres Hispani, semetipsos ab alijs segregantes, visi sunt alium requirere introitum nos praecedere cupientes, et certe nos illos exinde non vidimus, et quid eis acciderit an periculum subierint, velne ignoramus. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... to peruse Ovid's "Art of Love," since they know it all in advance; remarks that three-quarters of female authors are no better than they should be; maintains that Madame Guion would have been far more useful, had she been merely pretty and an ignoramus, such as Nature made her,—that Ruth and Naomi could not read, and Boaz probably would never have married into the family, had they possessed that accomplishment,—that the Spartan women did not know the alphabet, nor the Amazons, nor Penelope, nor Andromache, nor Lucretia, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... lower and lower. A man can do nothing alone. Of course, ignorance must be natural and not acquired in order to have the true ring and afford the most relief in the world; but every wide-awake village that has thoughtful people enough—people who are educated up to it—ought to organise an Ignoramus Club to defend the town from ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... helpless. For the first time he was able to recognize and appreciate a certain type of Englishman to which he himself to some extent belonged—an arrogant ignoramus who, encamped behind his wall of superiority, fears nothing because he sees nothing, and sees nothing because outside the walls there can not possibly be anything worth looking at. Nicholson had torn down Stafford's ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... centenarios et Decanos debeat eorum exercitus ordinari. [Sidenote: Interitus.] Post hoc ab ictu tonitrui esc occisus, peractis suis ordinationibus and statutis. Hic autem habuit quatuor filios: Vnus vocabatur Occoday, secundus Tossuch can, tertius Thaaday et nomen quarti ignoramus. [Sidenote: Liberi.] Isti quatuor filij cum alijs maioribus qui tunc erant, primum filium videlicet Occoday elegerunt imperatorem, filij autem istius Occoday Cuyne, qui nunc est imperator, Cocthen et ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... ignoramus, a pamphleteer, presumes to criticize without discrimination, you can confound him; but make rare mention of him, for fear ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... women must so smile as they hear their psychology so gravely discussed. Of course, the superstition is invaluable to them, and it is only natural that they should make the most of it. Man is supposed to be a complete ignoramus in regard to all the specialised female 'departments'—from the supreme mystery of the female heart to the humble domestic mysteries of a household. Similarly, men are supposed to have no taste in women's dress, yet for whom do women clothe themselves in ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... Russian underlings; and the Russian underling officers kept up a constant brawl of duels and gaming and drink. No wonder the bluff Dane sailed out from the snow-rimmed peaks of Avacha Bay with dark forebodings. He had carried a load of petty instructions issued by ignoramus savants for eight years. He had borne eight years of nagging from court and senate and academy. He had been criticised for blunders of others' making. He had been set to accomplish a Herculean task with tied hands. He had been threatened with fines and court martial ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... had never had time, never had an opportunity to speak freely. He has spoken freely now! Do you know, he may be an extraordinary man, but he's a fool, really.... He doesn't know how to put two words together. He's simply an ignoramus. Though, indeed, I don't blame him much... he might suppose I was a giddy, mad, worthless girl. I hardly ever talked to him.... He did excite my curiosity, certainly, but I imagined that a man who was worthy of being ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... "Come on, unlettered ignoramus," said his master, and, holding the wondering little foundling on his arm, with his rabbit still clutched by the ears, he proceeded down to the roadway, scored like a narrow gray streak through the brush, and plodded onward towards the ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... words attributed to him, and could not have uttered them. According to Wolf, it would be doing Cicero an egregious wrong to suppose him capable of having used such words, which are not Latin, and which were probably written by some ignoramus in the time of Tiberius. Such a verdict might have been taken as fatal—for Wolf's scholarship and powers of criticism are acknowledged—in spite of La Harpe, the French scholar and critic, who has named the Marcellus as a thing of excellence, comparing it ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... By the mention of this name, he evidently refers to Albumazar, acted at Cambridge, in 1614. Ignoramus, and other plays were performed at the same time. The practice was then very frequent. The last dramatick performance at either university, was the Grateful Fair, written by Christopher Smart, and represented at Pembroke college, Cambridge, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... and such as will give you a good insight into the fish of the Sutledge, as to the number of duplicates!—it is the safest plan for an ignoramus not to discriminate too nicely. I am to-day to get large specimens of the Kalabans, Rohi, etc. what a splendid fish the Rohi is, both to look at and to eat. There are two or three species of the transparent ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... because I left them'. He said that after he took me, a stupid little country ignoramus, and made something out of me, my desertion was nothing short of rank ingratitude and religious hypocrisy and treason to the land of my birth. One might have inferred that he picked me out of the gutter, brushed the dirt off, smoothed ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... is, the audacity with which Tolstoy holds forth about what he doesn't know and is too obstinate to care to understand. Thus his statements about syphilis, foundling hospitals, the aversion of women for the sexual relation, and so on, are not merely open to dispute, but show him up as an ignoramus who has not, in the course of his long life, taken the trouble to read two or three books written by specialists. But yet these defects fly away like feathers in the wind; one simply does not notice them in face of the real worth of the story, or, if one notices them, it is only with a little vexation ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... is tempting to add the word madra[c,]o (fool, ignoramus) for the sake of the rhyme. If O recado que elle d['a] were spoken very fast the line would bear ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... this process. I think a man may praise Pindar without knowing the top of a Greek letter from the bottom. But I think that if a man is going to abuse Pindar, if he is going to denounce, refute, and utterly expose Pindar, if he is going to show Pindar up as the utter ignoramus and outrageous impostor that he is, then I think it will be just as well perhaps—I think, at any rate, it would do no harm—if he did know a little Greek, and even had read a little Pindar. And I think the same situation would be involved if the critic were concerned to point ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... is it?" together with my offering dirty crumpled pieces of paper bearing such names as Troy, Palmyra, and Geneva, which were in fact notes of American banks which might have suspended payment, I was constantly taken, not for an ignoramus from the "Old Country," but for a "genuine Down-Easter." Canadian credit is excellent; but the banking system of the States is on a very insecure footing; some bank or other "breaks" every day, and lists ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... and less Greek? Know ye that he has never tasted the birch at Eton, nor trodden the flags of Carfax, nor paced the academic flats of Trumpington? Know ye that in mathematics, or logic, this wretched ignoramus is not fit to hold a candle to a wooden spoon? See ye not how, from describing law humours, he now, forsooth, will attempt the sublime? Discern ye not his faults of taste, his deplorable propensity to write blank verse? Come back to your ancient, venerable, and natural instructors. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the British not been too gravely interested, would have afforded them entertainment. The rules of no known military war game could be applied to the situation, and its uniqueness was a matter as incomprehensible to the tactician as to the ignoramus. For instance, from Maritzburg to Ladysmith one side alternated with the other at intervals along the line. There were British troops at Maritzburg, Boers at Balgowan; British at Mooi River, Boers at Willow Grange; British at Estcourt, Boers at Ennersdale; British within Ladysmith, and Boers ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... are an ignoramus, an unlearned man, ignorant of all good rules; an ass, in plain English. What! you begin a discourse without a word of exordium! Some one else must tell me what happened; will you, young lady, tell me the particulars of all ...
— The Jealousy of le Barbouille - (La Jalousie du Barbouille) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... Viscount Innisdale, noble family, distant branch,—the devil I am! What an ignoramus my father was not to know that! Why, rest his soul, he never knew who his grandfather was; but the world shall not be equally ignorant of that important point. Let me see, who shall be Viscount Innisdale's great-grandfather? Well, well, whoever ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of, if I can but be happy upon it? No, I shall never try to be a highly cultivated young woman. I shall read Byron, and Tennyson, and Wordsworth, and Keats, and Bulwer, and Dickens, and Thackeray, and remain an ignoramus all the days of my life. I think that would be quite enough for Rorie, if he and I were to be much together; for I don't believe he ever opens a book at all. And what would be the use of my talking to him about old red sandstone or the ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... bad faith, he dares to qualify as a slanderer, imposter and ignoramus, the man who ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... against whom these powerful leaders were directing all their energies was still counted an amateur in politics, irascible and indiscreet. He was laughed at in the cities as a boor and condemned in New England as an ignoramus, though Harvard College, under some strange inspiration, was soon to award him the doctorate of laws. Having come to power by means of a combination of South and West, Jackson had found his followers ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... son to the repugnance of Mrs. Armitage alone; and to this idiotic hallucination she has, I fear, fallen a sacrifice. Judging from the emaciated appearance of the body, and other phenomena communicated to me by her ordinary medical attendant—a blundering ignoramus, who ought to have called in assistance long before—she has been poisoned with iodine, which, administered in certain quantities, would produce precisely the same symptoms. Happily there is no mode of destroying human life ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... frequently accompany it in any former period, at least, in England, which is, that unbelievers in revelation generally proceed to the disbelief of the being and providence of God so as to become properly Atheists." So that, according to you, I am a Chinese, a Hottentot, an unbeliever, an Atheist, an ignoramus, a man of no sincerity; whose writings are full of nothing but gross mistakes and misrepresentations. Now I ask you, sir, What has all this to do with the main question? What has my book in common with my person? And how can you hold any converse with a man of such bad connexions? In ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... Philip to see whether he noticed that she was marrying no ignoramus. Anxious to exhibit all the good qualities of her betrothed, she abruptly introduced the subject of pallone, in which, it appeared, he was a proficient player. He suddenly became shy and developed a conceited grin—the grin of the village yokel whose cricket ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... comparatively little of history and literature, certainly less than the men against whom he was pitted or whose powers he emulated. He has been known to say to his friends, when asked to take part with them on some important question, 'You know I'm an ignoramus—instruct me and I'll do my best.' He had even to rub up his arithmetic when he thought he had some chance of being made Chancellor of the Exchequer; but, perhaps, many a statesman before and after him has ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... the door, but she held him there a moment, while she laughed delightedly and hugged him. "I knew it was me. As if we'd let our old doc go, or have anything to do with a young ignoramus from Denver! Didn't you know I was ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... born into this world an ignoramus, knowing nothing of the laws, customs and usage one inadvertently breaks? And for which one's punished. Why does one grow into a youth full of high ambition only to be driven into vile ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times. .. Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore held his peace on that head, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... be much, according to the Spragues, who gave me my status in this town, long ago, as an ignoramus." ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the wife is up to." The steward leaning against the bulkhead near the door glowered at Powell, that newcomer, that ignoramus, that stranger without ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... called receipt; the trough, cost and damages; the hole for the vice-pin, state; the side-boards, money paid into the office; the great beam, respite of homage; the branches, radietur; the side-beams, recuperetur; the fats, ignoramus; the two-handled basket, the rolls; the treading-place, acquittance; the dossers, validation; the panniers, authentic decrees; the pailes, potentials; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... an ample margin of time for recreation and amusement; and who knows what he may need, until the need is there to test what he knows? To be great on sport, and a "stick" at one's business; to be an authority on amusements, and an ignoramus about almost everything else that is anything, is the surrender of manhood, and that in a day which has no need comparable with its need ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... contrary, and conjured him to narrate to me the facts, an unacquaintance with which was sufficient it appeared to stamp me as an ignoramus ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 'em straight murders and bank robberies from the inside or out, Mawruss, and you sat opposite somebody in the Subway who had to move his lips while he was reading, you took it for granted that he was an ignoramus which had to hear them simple words pronounced, even if it was by his own lips, before he could understand them, Mawruss, but you take this here letter of the 20th inst., Mawruss, and when you read where President ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... he was considered a genius; now a sailor is, comparatively, an educated man: and if one is to be found who cannot read and write well, and accomplish far more abstruse things with his head, he is dubbed—a donkey. He is not now the debauched ignoramus which has made the English sailor a proverb all over the world. Education is of little value if it is not capable of changing a man's habits for the better. There is, however, much room for improvement in certain national traits; apropos of this, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... They are no longer flowers, but specimens, each bud and blossom pleading in vain for life, as ruthless fingers coolly dissect them to discover whether they are poly or mollyandria. And what an ignoramus you must be, if you do not know that a balloon-vine is a Cardiospernum Halicactum. The "feast" on these occasions is that "of reason" alone, encyclopedias and dictionaries being all the nourishment required, although a stray ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... "Like an ignoramus," Saniel replied, without being angry. For, however unusual this observation might be, he had already decided that it might be a good thing in the future to call upon the ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... good fellows together until you drifted, blindfolded, into the trap poor Morrell set for you. You thought I was ill-treating Con—disregarding his best interests—starving his soul! Oh! you poor little ignoramus; the boy never had a soul worth mentioning until it got awakened, in self-defense, and grew its own limit. What did you and Brace know of the past—the past that went into Con's making? You were free enough with your young condemnation and misplaced ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... his cheeks were flushed with a coarse colour, his eyes dull; he would launch into discourses upon his talent, his success, his development, the advance he was making.... It turned out in actual fact that he had barely talent enough to produce passable portraits. He was a perfect ignoramus, had read nothing; why should an artist read, indeed? Nature, freedom, poetry were his fitting elements; he need do nothing but shake his curls, talk, and suck away at his eternal cigarette! Russian audacity is a fine thing, but it doesn't suit every one; and ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... suit everybody. It supposes profound and impartial examination. He who doubts because he does not know the grounds of credibility, is no better than an ignoramus. The true sceptic has counted and weighed the reasons. But it is no light matter to weigh arguments. Who of us knows their value with any nicety? Every mind has its own telescope. An objection that disappears in your ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... for the place with the hope of getting it. Only too happy I to have that miserable post of mace-bearer. On the other I built but castles in the air. Your Holiness will do well, since you do not care to give it me, to bestow it on a man of talent who deserves it, and not upon some fat ignoramus who will spend his time scratching his paunch, if I may quote your holiness' own words. Follow the example of Pope Giulio's illustrious memory, who conferred an office of the same kind upon Bramante, ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... works of moles, Or dirt thrown up in digging holes! Some days of travel brought him where The tide had left the Oysters bare. Since here our traveller saw the sea, He thought these shells the ships must be. "My father was, in truth," said he, "A coward, and an ignoramus; He dared not travel: as for me, I've seen the ships and ocean famous; Have cross'd the deserts without drinking, And many dangerous streams, unshrinking." Among the shut-up shell-fish, one Was gaping widely at the sun; It breathed, and drank the air's perfume, Expanding, like a flower ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... by Thee with knowledge, understanding, and discernment. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, gracious Giver of Knowledge.' The intellect was to be turned to the service of the God from whom intelligence emanated. The Jewish estimate of intellect and learning led to some unamiable contempt of the fool and the ignoramus. But the evil tendency of identifying learning with religion was more than mitigated by the encouragement which this concept gave to education. The ideal was that every Jew must be a scholar, or at all events a ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... ten minutes, during which time he learned most of all there was to know about my little journalistic and debating experience at Cambridge, and the general trend of my views and purposes. I do not think he particularly desired my services; but, on the other hand, I was not an absolute ignoramus. I had written for publication; I had enthusiasm; and there was my ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... the final aim. The working man who was only beginning to study the situation thinks the "companion" is right, and so he becomes a convinced and devoted Anarchist! What would happen, if pursuing his studies of the social question further, he had understood that the "companion" was a pretentious ignoramus, that he talked twaddle, that his "Ideal" is a delusion and a snare, that outside bourgeois politics there is, opposed to these, the political action of the proletariat, which will put an end to the very existence ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... ghost is no slouch at finding things. He is no ignoramus, either, for he must be able to read and write and understand geography to get any good out of that memorandum. Does it give the exact details of ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... her; she blushed, and looked at Herr Carovius questioningly. "Don't you know our Daniel Nothafft, you little ignoramus?" said Herr Carovius. "You know nothing of our coryphaeus? Hail to the Master! Welcome home! He is here, covered ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... property by quibbling at words." "Rascal!" said the fellow, "you lie, I am no rascal; and as for quibbling with words—suppose I did! What then? All the first people does it! The newspapers does it! the gentlefolks that calls themselves the guides of the popular mind does it! I'm no ignoramus. I read the newspapers, and knows what's what." "You read them to some purpose," said I. "Well, if you are lamed for life, and unfitted for any active line—turn newspaper editor; I should say you are perfectly qualified, and this day's adventure may be the foundation ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... "Peter, you're an ignoramus. Girls like me never take too much. We began early for one thing, and we're used to it. For another, the more a girl talks, the soberer she is. She talks because she's thinking, and because she ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... "nom de plume" and a mask behind which he could be hidden, would not have selected the name, or the nearest possible approach to the name, of an ignorant unread actor. As he was never suspected of not being the author of the plays and poems, Will cannot have been a country ignoramus, manifestly incapable of poetry, wit, and such learning as the plays exhibit. Every one must judge for himself. Mr. Greenwood fervently believes in what I ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... honest and earnest in the tone of the boy, that, much as Harmon had felt disposed, at first, to sport with his ignorance, he could not refrain from giving him a true answer. Still, his contempt for the ignorant apprentice was not to be concealed, and he replied, "Ninety-five millions of miles, you ignoramus!" James did not retort; but, repeating over in his mind the distance named, fixed ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... rascal; and as for quibbling with words—suppose I did! What then? All the first people does it! The newspapers does it! The gentlefolks that calls themselves the guides of the popular mind does it! I'm no ignoramus. I reads the newspapers, and knows what's what." "You read them to some purpose," said I. "Well, if you are lamed for life, and unfitted for any active line—turn newspaper editor; I should say you are perfectly qualified, and this day's adventure may be the foundation of your fortune;" ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Ignoramus. Com[oe]dia [in five acts and in prose] coram Regie Jacobo et totius Angli magnatibus per Academicos Cantabrigienses habita. Editio quarta. Londini, ex ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges
... their ideas of robbing the stranger are faint and barbarous; here, as throughout Dalmatia, should you give a man money, and the sum be not even more than twice the value of the obligation, the poor ignoramus is delighted, and thanks and blesses you most fervently. The climate of Cattaro is not considered healthy. The inhabitants die of consumption in the winter, and fever in the summer, and they generally have a sickly appearance. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... the following title—"New Essayes and Characters, with a new Satyre in defence of the Common Law, and Lawyers: mixt with reproofe against their Enemy Ignoramus, &c. London, 1631." It seems not improbable that some person had attacked Stephens's first edition, although I am unable to discover the publication alluded to. I suspect him to be the editor of, or ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... of nervous zeal and pitiless indifference. Spare us the so-called friends who come and gape and stare and go! What is more painful than the chatter of the connoisseur as it falls upon the long ears of the ignoramus! Collecting is a secret sin—the great pushing public must be kept out. It is sheer madness to puff and praise your hobby, and to invite Dick, Tom, and Harry to inspect your stable: such conduct is to invite rebuff, to expose yourself to just ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... Colonna, and wrote to Aretino about transcripts: 'Niccolo has copied it on paper for Cosmo de' Medici: you must write to Carlo Aretino for another copy, or he might lend you the original, because if the scribe should be an ignoramus you might get a fable instead ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... estrangement so much to heart that she eased her feelings by abusing Pin in thought; Pin was a pig-headed little ignoramus, as timid as ever of setting one foot before the other. And the rest of them would be just the same—old stick-in-the muds, unchanged by a hair, or, if they HAD changed, then changed for the worse. Laura had somehow never foreseen the day on which she would find herself out of tune ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... last and utmost violence inflicted on them by the Pontiff of Physical Religion in the effort to force unification of the universe; they had protested with mild conviction that they could not state the geological record in terms of time; they had murmured Ignoramus under their breath; but they had never dared to assert the Ignorabimus that lay on the tips of ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... appeared possible to any but the most superficial sciolist. He also speaks of an electroscope that will telegraph rays of light (!) and enable us thereby to see our most distant friends, and of stowing in a small compass electricity enough to exterminate an army. This imaginative ignoramus adds, "Give to our present biped acquaintance the ability to exterminate armies with a lightning flash, added to the power of sailing at will through the air or of passing at will and in safety beneath the ocean ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... is. He ought to do the way a boy I knew once did. He suffered just as Dormy does. You'd tell him a thing in his left ear and the first thing you'd know, pop! it would all come out of the other ear and be lost. The poor fellow was growing up to be an ignoramus. Couldn't keep a thing in his head, until one night I overheard his father and mother talking about it in the library. The boy's father wanted to punish him for not remembering what he learned at school, when his mother said just what Dormy here said, that everything went in one ear and out ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs |
