"Scoff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... end of the sixth month there happened to me what, looking back, I consider to be the greatest piece of good fortune of my life. I received a literary introduction. Some authorities scoff at literary introductions. They say that editors read everything, whether they know the author or not. So they do; and, if the work is not good, a letter to the editor from a man who once met his cousin at a garden-party ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... the vision sees more than you or I; He who lives the golden dream lives fourfold thereby; Time may scoff and worlds may laugh, hosts assail his thought, But the visionary came ere the builders wrought; Ere the tower bestrode the dome, ere the dome the arch, He, the dreamer of the dream, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... men are described in the Book of Wisdom who say: "Let unrighteousness be our law," 2, 11. Also in Psalms, 12, 4: "Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?" Again in Psalm 73. "They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression: they speak loftily," etc. Such were the giants who withstood the Holy Spirit to his face, who, through the mouth of Lamech, Noah and the sons of Noah, exhorted, ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... cannot trust myself with such anticipations. I am well aware how little the world sympathises with the man whose fortunes are the sport of his temperament—that April-day frame of mind is ever the jest and scoff of those hardier and sterner natures, who, if never overjoyed by success, are never much depressed by failure. That I have been cast in the former mould, these Confessions have, alas! plainly proved; but ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... saw de shirt, He jus' was mad enough To tink he got to hold review Widout his best Dutch ruff. Ma'am said she 'lowed it was de calf Dat had done chawed it off; But when de General heard dat ar, He answered with a scoff; He said de marks warn't don' of teef, But plainly dose ob shears; An' den he showed her to de do' And cuffed me on ye years. And when my ma'am arribed at home She stretched me 'cross her lap, Den took de lace away from ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... greased And known hereafter by the marke of thumbe; At which, my little booke, be ye well pleased, For booke, like mouthe, unopened is dumbe. And there be some, perchance, will bidde you off To Conventre, or Yorke, or Jericho; But be not you, my booke, abashed by scoff, For I will teach you where you boun to go,— Which is in Gloucestershire, there unto Bisley, Where the church spire is spied long afarre; It is not either uncouth, square, or grisly, But soareth high, as if to catch a starre; Where shall the brother of the Christian Yeare, Keble, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... next can close to the fire and blinked at it hard. "I'm damned if he hasn't sent three tins of plum pudding. Never mind, we'll manage to scoff some of it between us. You're in luck's way this trip, Jack, and ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... communication with Paris, scarcely connected by wretched roads with the sub-prefecture, or the chief city of their own province, these towns regard the new civilization as a spectacle to be gazed at; it amazes them, but they never applaud it; and, whether they fear or scoff at it, they continue faithful to the old manners and customs which have come down to them. Whoso would travel as a moral archaeologist, observing men instead of stones, would find images of the time of Louis ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... remember that the ass can kick, And that when kicking, asses never bray, So gird your armor on and lop each head Who hath at your dilemma dared to scoff. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... said Lake, with a sly scoff, though he seemed to me a good deal scared. 'We hear no complaints, however, and fancy he must be tolerably ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... half smothered from his huge chest, were deeper and more diabolical by far than their own. He even jeered at them; but, however disgusting his frown, there was something truly apalling in the dark gleam of his scoff, which threw them at an immeasurable distance behind him, in the power of displaying on the countenance the worst ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... journeyings through life, and plans formed, which were never to be realized. And perhaps all was for the best; for we are all creatures of circumstance. Not one in a thousand follows out his plans through life. Half of our existence is imaginary; and wise-acres may scoff as much as they please at what they term 'castle-building,' I believe all mankind indulge in it more or less; and it is an innocent, harmless pastime, which injures no one. I consider it the 'unwritten poetry,' the romance of life, which all feel; but many, like the dumb, strive in vain to give ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... consented to hear Mass, and St. Cloud was the place where this ancient usage was first re-established. He directed the ceremony to commence sooner than the hour announced in order that those who would only make a scoff at it might not arrive until the service ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... were slain. You boast of your strength and power. See, you follow the motion of my hand, as a dog would. See, you kneel before me, and prostrate yourself in the dust at my feet, at my bidding. Lie there, and think well whether you are able to scoff any more. You kneeled to the king of your own will; you kneel to me at mine, and though you had the strength of a hundred men, you must kneel there till I ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Jewish Letters, published at Newcastle in 1746. (The Dublin edition of 1753 I have not seen.) Though d'Argens's purpose in Letter 35 may have been to advertise his own novel, what he had to say is interesting. Like many others, he could scoff at the heroic romances and yet borrow and quietly modify the doctrines of Ibrahim and Clelie. He proposed a still more "advanced" vraisemblance and decorum—psychological analysis tinged with cynicism rather than idealism; gallantry but against the background sometimes ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor. "See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a divergent ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... points, of your inconsistencies, of your faults and failings; and cry—Fie on thee, fie on thee. We saw it with our eyes. For all his high professions, for all his talk of truth and justice, he is no better than the rest of the world. And that scoff does go very near to confound a man; because he feels that it is half true, half deserved, and is afraid that it may be quite true and quite deserved: and then confounded indeed he would be, by his own conscience and ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... spoke of her children, in whom her own youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one has to wait till ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Christian. As he was a Local Preacher and a Class Leader, I was much in his society, and I can say, as many others have said, that William, since the day of his conversion, was never heard to utter an unkind word about any one, or do anything that could give the enemies of the Lord Jesus an opportunity to scoff at his profession of loving the Lord with all his heart. He was never a very strong man physically while we knew him, and so was unable to go on the long tripping or hunting expeditions with him more vigorous comrades. He suffered much from inward pain, but ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... generous nature as the hours and the days passed and the end approached, and still the traitor allowed him to suffer. And there was the hate and scorn of man, the clamor for vengeance from society, the condemnation of the jury who had prejudged his case, the sneer of the paid advocate, the scoff of the gaping crowd, to whom the plea of noblesse oblige and stainless honor and perfect truth seemed only maudlin sentimentality ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... drudgery of the fields; in it he must live his life, and fulfil his mission. The more he wrote the more he accustomed himself with the idea of being an author. He knew that the critic-folk, deep read in books, might scoff at the very suggestion of a ploughman turning poet, but he recognised also that they might be wrong. It was not by dint of Greek that Parnassus was to be climbed. 'Ae spark o' Nature's fire' was the one thing needful for poetry that was ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... destruction, as is now plainly evident in the misfortunes of many. True, you have lessened our taxes to the public; but, too, you have increased those to ourselves;—prosecutions, protests, and failures are no blessing to a community. And you dare scoff at the man in his grave whom the whole parish blesses! You dare say he lies in our way,—yes, very likely he lies in your way. This is plainly to be seen; but over this grave you shall fall! The spirit which has reigned over you, and at the same time until now over us, was not ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... lover of Hounds; I have followed many a pack of dogs many a mile, and heard many merry Huntsmen make sport and scoff ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... his amazing power of influencing other men. The members of the Scriblerus Club laughed at the Dean's project, but so powerful was his eloquence, that 'those who came to scoff remained to subscribe.' Moreover, with Sir Robert Walpole as Prime Minister, he actually obtained a grant from the State of L20,000 in order to carry out the project, the king gave a charter, and to crown all, Sir Robert put his own name down for L200 ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Virtue's holy brow, A wreath of scorn I sought to twine— And bade her minions mocking bow, With sweeter vows at pleasure's shrine— Or if I mirrored to the thought, With glorious truth the charms of earth, While yet the trusting fool I taught, To scoff at Him who gave it birth— Or if I filled the soul with light, And bore its buoyant wing in air— To plunge it down in deeper night, And mock its maniac wanderings there— I did but wield the wand of power, That God intrusted to my clasp, And not, the tyrant of an hour— Will I resign ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... not mean to worship, mother mine. A great curiosity drew me—I desired to see with my own eyes, and hear with mine own ears, this adoration of the Christ, at which my teachers scoff. But I was caught up in a mighty wave of organ-music that surged from this low earth heavenwards to break against the footstool of God in the crystal firmament. And suddenly I knew what my soul was pining for. I knew the meaning of that restless ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... reached the sticking point only a half hour before, was the result of considerable deliberation. He had argued with himself and had made up his mind to find out for himself just what these people did. He was finding out, certainly. His motives were good and he had come with no desire to scoff, but, for the life of him, he could not help feeling like a criminal. Incidentally, it provoked ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... lake, which other people thought so lovely, was, in that mind which affected to scoff at the unseen, a distinct creation of ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... had their brains dashed out, they would have some cause to complain; but alas, slander, calumny, and disgrace, are no other way injurious than as they are interpreted; nor otherwise evil, than as they are thought to be so: what harm is it then if all persons deride and scoff you, if you bear but up in your own thoughts, and be yourself thoroughly conceited of your deserts? And prithee, why should it be thought any scandal to be a fool, since the being so is one part of our nature and essence; and as so, our not being wise can no more reasonably be imputed ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... quietly, "that for you marriage is the only end. The love of a good woman would be your salvation. Yes, you may scoff. But—whether you admit it or not—it is the truth. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... (looking at the cadets): Here are the rebels! Ay, Sirs, on all sides I hear that in your ranks you scoff at me; That the Cadets, these loutish, mountain-bred, Poor country squires, and barons of Perigord, Scarce find for me—their Colonel—a disdain Sufficient! call me plotter, wily courtier! It does not please their mightiness to see A point-lace collar on my steel cuirass,— And they enrage, ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... qualities. You were every day to have added fuel to the flame. You were to have presented Matilda to my arms, more beautiful, more tender, more kind, than she had ever appeared. From this moment then, let the name of trust be a by-word for the profligate to scoff at! Let the epithet of friend be a mildew to the chaste and uncorrupted ear! Let mutual confidence be banished from the earth, and men, more savage than the brute, ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... my secret as yet,"—with a faint wan smile. "Let me keep it a little longer. Not even Mrs. Massereene knows of it. Indeed, it is too soon to proclaim my design. People might scoff it; though for all that I shall work it out. And something tells me ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... to the ford to encounter Cuchulain. The mighty warriors of the camp and station considered it not a goodly enough sight to view the combat of Larine; only the women and boys and girls, [4]thrice fifty of them,[4] went to scoff and to jeer at ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... devilishly greedy for profits, yet you scoff at us because we go chasing after business. You fetch heaps of money across the sea, and then turn up your sublimely snuffing noses ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... "Don't be angry, Avery! I'm not scoffing. I don't know enough about God to scoff at Him. Tell me! Do you ever get an answer, or are you content to go jogging on like the rest of ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... war I'll scoff, I think I'd best begone!" And when the foe's last gun went off The ...
— The Animals' Rebellion • Clifton Bingham
... pleasant, I say, to trace this "certain condescension" in the good old times. Jacob Rathgeb (1592) says the English are magnificently dressed, and extremely proud and overbearing; the merchants, who seldom go unto other countries, scoff at foreigners, who are liable to be ill-used by street boys and apprentices, who collect in immense crowds and stop the way. Of course Cassandra Stubbes, whose mind was set upon a better country, has little good ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of sin? How is this, O Lord, how can it be that such great grace has come to the lot of one who has so ill deserved such things at Thy hands!' He who can read that, and a hundred passages as good as that, and who shall straightway set himself to sneer and scoff and disparage and find fault, he is well on the way to the sin against the Holy Ghost. At any rate, I would be if I did not revere and love and imitate such a saint of God. Given God and His Son and His Holy Spirit: given ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... tell, my fair lord. The Romans of old were a very wise people, yet, certes, they placed their faith in such matters. So, too, did the Greeks, and divers other ancient peoples who were famed for their learning. Yet of the moderns there are many who scoff at all omens." ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... himself. For what will you do if a man speaks about gladiators, about horses, about athletes, or what is worse about men? Such a person is bad, such a person is good; this was well done, this was done badly. Further, if he scoff, or ridicule, or show an ill-natured disposition? Is any man among us prepared like a lute-player when he takes a lute, so that as soon as he has touched the strings, he discovers which are discordant, ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... has been in my room, and nailed Matthew vii. 1, Mark x. 7, and Ezek. xviii. 20, on my wall. He found my diary, and has read it, not to profit by, alas! but to scoff." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... behind those blackened walls there lurked evil forms. Twilight was coming on as we turned back to our car, and a cold mist was slowly rising from the river. I am not superstitious, and in broad daylight I will scoff at ghosts with anyone, but I should not care to spend a night alone in Termonde. One could almost hear the Devil laughing at the handiwork ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... generally ignored, as this very Deity to whom you ascribe unlimited power, and from whom you say you receive life and everything. An eastern despot would take off the heads of those who treated him in such a style; and a republican politician would scoff at the idea of giving office to such lukewarm followers. Why, here in Christian Chicago the will of God is no more heeded by the majority than that of the Emperor of China, and the Bible might as well be the Koran. Looking at these facts from my impartial standpoint, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... a perito is a perrito (little dog)!" exclaimed Father Damaso, with a scoff. "One would have to be more of a brute than the natives, who erect their own houses, if he did not know how to build four walls and put a covering over them. That's all that a ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... Nekrovitch and others often joined in the discussion, and very animated we all grew in the course of debate. Nekrovitch smiled sympathetically at my whole-hearted and ingenuous enthusiasm. He never made any attempt to scoff at it or to discourage me, though he vainly attempted to persuade me that Anarchism was too distant and unpractical an ideal, and that my energies and enthusiasm might be more advantageously expended in ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... absolutely revel in wickedness of the vilest description, who take positive delight in inflicting the most horrible indignities upon those who unfortunately happen to fall into their power, who gloat over the unavailing tears and entreaties of their victims, and who scoff at the mere mention of the word 'mercy'. Picture to yourself the very worst that you have ever heard or read of piratical atrocities, and you will be able to arrive at a very accurate conception of the horrors ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... scurrilously indicated. In writing of London and the actors in his "dark speeches," Greene refers to London as Rome and to the Shoreditch Theatre as the "theatre in Rome." In his Penelope's Web he writes: "They which smiled at the theatre in Rome might as soon scoff at the rudeness of the scene as give a plaudite at the perfection of the acting." While it is Burbage's Theatre that is here referred to, it is evident that his quarrel was not now with the actors—whom both he and Nashe praise in their quality—but ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... said her father. "I hope you may always hold to both. I think that those girls who expect to be regarded as advanced, because they scoff at the Bible and at faith, are quite horrid. I also hope that you will not ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... "Scoff at me if you will, I am proof. But hearken—you mustn't turn out that schoolmistress. She's an angel, and I know it; and if I say so of any human being, you may be sure ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... me how, by three-fold scoff, When cares of life perplex us, To smoke, or sleep, or fiddle them off, And scorn ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... admit that it was a very striking scene. It was very good," I added, religiously, referring to the corn. Mr. Rollin ought to know, I thought, that I had come to Wallencamp on a mission, and that if he wished to scoff at the ways of its defenceless inhabitants, he shouldn't look to find a confidante ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... which I, who must prate, Answered, "Yes, Sir, but changeable rather, of late." He took it, I fear, for he lookt somewhat gruff, And handled his new pair of whiskers so rough, That before all the courtiers I feared they'd come off, And then, Lord, how Geramb[2] would triumphantly scoff! ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the outcome of the preceding Act. To whom is Berowne's line (V, ii, 477)—"Speake for yourselves, my wit is at an end"—addressed? How is the King brought to confusion? Is the Princess too hard upon him? Why does Berowne scoff so ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 180 The service pass'd, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... has become the fashion amongst certain men to scoff at this terrible vice of secret indulgence, and to claim that its evil effects are overrated, are portrayed too vividly. Ask some poor unfortunate whose confidence you may succeed in gaining, and listen ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... live and die without religion. Suppose he had proved to the world's satisfaction that all religion is a hoax, and all men professing it are liars, how does that comfort me in my hour of sorrow? Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. If Infidels intend to convert the world, they must give us some positive system of truth which we can ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... whose sincerity we recognize and respect, but occasionally I find young men who think it smart to be skeptical; they talk as if it were an evidence of larger intelligence to scoff at creeds and to refuse to connect themselves with churches. They call themselves "Liberal," as if a Christian were narrow minded. Some go so far as to assert that the "advanced thought of the world" has discarded ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... all connected therewith, had yet much to say in thy praise, when thou wast far inferior to what thou art now, why should true-born Englishmen, or those who call themselves so, turn up their noses at thee, and scoff thee at the present day, as I believe they do? But, let others do as they will, I, at least, who am not only an Englishman, but an East Englishman, will not turn up my nose at thee, but will praise and extol thee, calling thee mart of the world—a place of wonder and astonishment!—and, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... not the forsaking of these beliefs and superstitious practices which has brought about the decay of the Empire. If you are asking for the temples of your gods to be opened, it is because they are easy to your passions. At heart, you scoff at them and the Empire; all you want is freedom and impunity for your vices. There we have the real cause of the decadence! Little matter the idle grimaces before altars and statues. Become chaste, sober, brave, and poor, as your ancestors were. Have children, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... tried spreading plastic wax where the beasts would walk on it, in pathways or before dens. How they did scoff! The simplest ground squirrel knew too much to venture on my waxen snare; around 'it, or if hemmed in, over it, with a mighty bound they went; but never a ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... himself would have acted as some corrosive acid, and stained with patches of absurdity the whole fabric of his dreams. He looked at Father Moran, and saw the priest's eyes lit with sympathy. He knew that he had a listener who would not scoff, who might, perhaps, even understand. He began to speak, slowly and haltingly at first, then more rapidly. At last he poured out with breathless, incoherent speed the strange story of the Armageddon vision, the hopes that were in him, the fierce enthusiasm, the passionate love for Ireland ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... it, of course they will. You surely cannot suppose I should, in cold blood, sit down to write a story in which nobody was to fall in love or be in love! Sir, scoff as you may, love is the one vital principle in all romance. Not only does your cheek flush and your eye sparkle, till "heart, brain, and soul are all on fire," over the burning words of some Brontean Pythoness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... prayer went up, and there were none to scoff, when the aged man bent his knee, and lifted his heart to God in prayer, beseeching him, for Jesus Christ's sake, to have mercy upon their souls. Many prayed in that hour of trial that never prayed before. It was an hour that ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... a victim to love; and could she only save her daughter from a similar error she might yet by her means retrieve her fallen fortune. To implant principles of religion and virtue in her mind was not within the compass of her own; but she could scoff at every pure and generous affection; she could ridicule every disinterested attachment; and she could expatiate on the never-fading joys that attend on wealth and titles, jewels and equipages; and all this she did in the belief that she was acting the part of a most wise and tender parent! ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... you; You scoff even at your own calamity— And such calamity! how wert thou fallen 20 Son of the Morning! and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... you may mildly scoff, That hard, afflicting churchyard cough Gives pretty plain advice, "Be off, While yet you can." It is not time yet, John, to doff Your ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... eyes, though his face was as impassive as usual. And the worst of it was that it suggested humor, not resentment. Even in the tumult of wounded pride that took her heart by storm, she realized that her fiery vehemence had gone perilously near to a literal translation of the saintly scoff at old Barbariccia. And, now if ever, she must be dignified. Anger yielded to disdain. In an instant she grew ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... at length," continued Ratcliffe, "the most ingenious self-tormentor of whom I have ever heard; the scoff of the rabble, and the sneer of the yet more brutal vulgar of his own rank, was to him agony and breaking on the wheel. He regarded the laugh of the common people whom he passed on the street, and the suppressed titter, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... has the INFLUENZA—a right-down influenza, that sends people to their beds. Those who have triumphed at their exemption in the evening, wake up perhaps in the morning full of aches in every limb, and scoff no longer. . . . Dinner parties are sometimes quite broken up by the excuses that come pouring in at the last moment. Lady John Russell had seven last week at a small dinner of twelve; 1,200 policemen at one time were ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... and showed it to them, but they minded it no more than if he had been only a common man. He drew himself to his height and looked gravely at them and they jovially said: " Hello, Whiskers." American college students are notorious in their country for their inclination to scoff at robed and crowned authority, and, far from being awed by the dignity of the hotel-keeper, they were delighted with it. It was something with which to sport. With immeasurable impudence, they copied his attitude, and, standing before him, made comic speeches, always alluding ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... may scoff, and the pessimist may croak, but even they must take hope at the picture presented in the simple and touching incident of eight Grand Army veterans, with their silvery heads bowed in sympathy, escorting the lifeless body of the Daughter of the Confederacy from ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... cannot brook these injuries. Q. Isab. Ay me, poor soul, when these begin to jar! [Aside. K. Edw. Return it to their throats; I'll be thy warrant. Gav. Base, leaden earls, that glory in your birth, Go sit at home, and eat your tenants' beef; And come not here to scoff at Gaveston, Whose mounting thoughts did never creep so low As to bestow a look on such as you. Lan. Yet I disdain not to do this for you. [Draws his sword, and offers to stab Gaveston. K. Edw. Treason! treason! where's the traitor? Pem. Here, here! K. Edw. ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... appreciate their work. Sometimes the charm of what they played was too esoteric for my understanding. The sounds were unmeaning to me; not infrequently they were absolutely discordant. But I had confidence enough in the superiority of their intellects over mine not to condemn, still less to scoff. At these times I held my tongue. Genius is ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... William Knox and of —- Sinclair, his wife, {2a} unlike most Scotsmen, unlike even Mr. Carlyle, had not "an ell of pedigree." The common scoff was that each Scot styled himself "the King's poor cousin." But John Knox declared, "I am a man of base estate and condition." {2b} The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has been traced to a date behind the Norman Conquest, but of Knox's ancestors nothing is known. He himself, in 1562, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... but altogether a hopeless one. You have no idea of the condition of the settlers here. You cannot get a hearing. They scoff at such things utterly", ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... harpies fateful. Kitchen never yet Knew a failure greater. Few its end regret. Surely not the Waiter. He his finger had In the pie—or gravy. Did he? Well, 'tis sad. He must cry "Peccavi!" But whoever mixed, Or whoever boiled it, Our opinion's fixed, He, or they, quite spoiled it. 'Tis the general scoff, Butt of chaff and rudeness. Irish Stew is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... I? The victim of infidelity and you, the bearer of a cursed existence, the scoff and scorn of the world, the monument of a broken vow and a guilty life, a being scourged by the scorpion lash of conscience, blasted by periodical insanity, pelted by the winter's storm, scorched by the summer's heat, withered ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Mercury, nor Jupiter we beg For a devouring despot, lank of leg, Of prying eye, and frog-transfixing beak; Though singly we seem weak, United we are strong to smite or scoff. Off, would-be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... guilty soul passed away without opportunity for repentance; prayers and curses issuing from his lips in horrible confusion up to the last moment of his existence. His death was witnessed by several of his companions in crime; and, while some tried to laugh and scoff away the unwelcome impression which the scene produced upon their minds, there were others who went into the open air and wandered away by themselves to ponder upon this miserable ending ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... Sylvester, and yet is neither the one nor the other, may be too much for your saner moments of credulity. But Mr. STRAUS tells his queer story so plausibly and with so light a touch that even though you may affect to scoff at his dashing improbabilities you cannot escape their attraction. Indeed Mr. STRAUS'S adventure into fields hitherto strange to him has been so successful that I am inclined to ask him to continue ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... because in poem, chronicle, code, legend, myth, apologue, or parable they reflect this development of what is best in the onward march of humanity. To say that they are not true is as if one should say that a flower or a tree or a planet is not true; to scoff at them is to scoff at the law of the universe. In welding together into noble form, whether in the book of Genesis, or in the Psalms, or in the book of Job, or elsewhere, the great conceptions of men acting under earlier inspiration, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... couple of well-aimed shots, one with a rock as big as a cricket ball, and one with a tomahawk, laid them out, and they became the prize of the successful marksmen. The nigger "boy" has to be paid one pound a week and his "scoff," and, taking him all in all, in spite of his faults, which are many, I verily think he ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... "both living and loving!" But now Paradise barred its doors against me; I was driven from her presence, where rosy blushes and delicious sighs and all soft wishes dwelt, the outcast of nature and the scoff of love! I thought of the time when I was a little happy careless child, of my father's house, of my early lessons, of my brother's picture of me when a boy, of all that had since happened to me, and of the waste of years to come—I stopped, faultered, and was going ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... Owen will tell you, with eyes full of scorn, Threadbare is my coat, and my hosen are torn: Scoff on, my rich Owen, for faint is thy glee When the maid of Llanwellyn smiles ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... seems to me that they'll insult Pasha—scoff at him. 'Ah, you peasant!' they'll say. 'You son of a peasant! What's this mess you've cooked up?' And Pasha, proud as he is, he'll answer them so——! Or Andrey will laugh at them—and all the comrades there are hot-headed and honest. So I can't help thinking that something will ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... now, saucy Jade; Sure the Wench is tipsy! How can you see me made [To him. The Scoff of such a Gipsy? ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... made in a certain fashion. You have deceived us. It is much uglier, more dull, dirtier, sadder and harder, at least in our opinion and to our imagination: you judge us as overexcited and disordered; if so, it is your fault. For this reason, we curse and scoff at your world and reject your pretended truths which, for us, are lies, including those elementary and primordial verities which you declare are evident to common sense, and on which you base your laws, your ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... certain people always grow splenetic— Why, goodness knows—at everything pathetic, And scoff it down. We all know how, of late, An unfledged, upstart undergraduate Presumed, with brazen insolence, to declare That "William Russell"(1)was a ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... royal tapestries. The servants of the suitors came also and cut wood for the fires. Eumaios arrived early, driving three fat hogs. He saluted Odysseus and asked him if he were well treated by the suitors, or if they continued to scoff at him. Odysseus answered him: "May the gods punish the ruthless men who perpetrate such wrongs in a stranger's home." While they were talking together the goatherd joined him, and repeated the sneers and abuse of the preceding ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... him would be more than she could bear. There was no deceit in him, no falsehood—as yet; but perhaps when he grew up he would cheat her too. He would pretend to love her and betray her trust; he would kiss her, and then go away and scoff at her; he would smile, and smile, and be a villain. Such words were not in Lucy's mind, and it was altogether out of nature that she should even receive the thought: which made it all the more terrible when it was poured into her soul. And it cannot be told what discoveries ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... denunciation await that man who stands unawed before it, seeing in it but an ugly little idol. And I guess what will be dealt out to him who not only refuses to bow the head, but openly scoffs. And yet I am going to scoff and say ugly words about this fetish of ours. I am going to say that it represents ignorance, hides and causes hypocrisy, stands in the way of progress, drags low the standard of individual excellence, perpetuates ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... of the sacrifice to Fortune. This scene is unspeakably irrational. To believe, and yet to scoff at, a present miracle is little less than impossible. Sejanus should have been made to suspect priestcraft and a secret ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... end of Kenna, so far as Jim was concerned. And, somehow, that last sentence, "I've give me word as a mahn," kept ringing in Jim's ears; it helped to offset the brutalizing effect of many other episodes—that Fighting Bill should scoff at bonds and force, but be bound and helpless by the little sound that ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Simon, "he will bid the Duke of Rothsay take charge of it; and the wild young prince will regard the outrage as something for his gay companions to scoff at, and his minstrels to turn ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... on my way," observed the wily step-father, beating a retreat so hastily that Eddie missed the opportunity to scoff. But the contemplative smile remained just as he ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Hast thou not said, 'Be virtuous, be good, be just, for the sake of mankind: but there is no life after this life'? Mankind! why should I love mankind? Hideous and misshapen, mankind jeer at me as I pass the streets. What hast thou done to me? Thou hast taken away from me, who am the scoff of this world, the hopes of another! Is there no other life? Well, then, I want thy gold, that at least I may hasten to make ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... is. What right have I to judge others severely, do you suppose, when I must ask for indulgency myself? Or have you forgotten that I am a laughing stock to everyone, who is not too indifferent even to scoff?... By the way," he added, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... quite spell-bound, while Mackay's prophesying voice ranged up and down through all the modulations of thunder, from the hurrying mutter to the reverberant shock and climax: and those who came to scoff remained to wonder. ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... roifle Allus gittin' chaarged; Muster Jarvey's roifle 'il hev to git enlaarged; Muster Jarvey's roifle's Loaded oft—don't scoff; Muster Jarvey's roifle Nivver ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... fleer[obs3]; show up. [i.p.] play upon, play tricks upon; fool to the top of one's bent; laugh at, grin at, smile at; poke fun at. satirize, parody, caricature, burlesque, travesty. turn into ridicule; make merry with; make fun of, make game of, make a fool of, make an April fool of[obs3]; rally; scoff &c. (disrespect) 929. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the time of his canonization (1189), but from that time forward ambition, avarice, and luxury made such inroads upon the solitude of Grammont that its monks became the byword and scoff of the ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... horribly world-weary, you care for nothing. You have drained philosophy to the dregs, and scoff at everything." ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... sarcastic persons who scoff at all things it may be a great amusement to detect the secret of a woman, to know that her chastity is a lie, that her calm face hides some anxious thought, that under that pure brow is a dreadful drama. But there are other souls to whom the sight is saddening; ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... his corner, hands clasped in prayer. (He did so night after night unmolested.) The crowd watched curiously—but had anyone dare to scoff they, as Mahieu said, "would a' knocked ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... especially if it be such a virtue, whereunto himself pretendeth. Speech of touch towards others, should be sparingly used; for discourse ought to be as a field, without coming home to any man. I knew two noblemen, of the west part of England, whereof the one was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer in his house; the other would ask, of those that had been at the other's table, Tell truly, was there never a flout or dry blow given? To which the guest would answer, Such and ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... not think on't. The scoff was true—I thank her—I thank God— This too I needed. I had built myself A Babel-tower, whose top should reach to heaven, Of poor men's praise and prayers, and subtle pride At mine own alms. 'Tis crumbled into dust! Oh! ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... do scholars or physicians scoff at the ancient authorities who dominated medical thinking for so many centuries. The seventeenth-century physician striving to reduce the frightful inroads that disease made into the colony at Jamestown may have been handicapped by the erroneous doctrines of the gossamer-fine a priori ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... neighbours and voiced strangely radical sentiments concerning Life and its obligations. They were often startling, particularly as she made no secret of the fact that she and her husband never "got on." Between puffs of cigarette smoke she would scoff at the laws of marriage and speak with much leniency of divorce. Her sympathies were invariably with offenders, and Joyce thought her rather too fond of the society of men. Meredith feared and disliked ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... of bitterness. "Are you satisfied with your pupil?" she added. "I am progressing.... I laugh—when I wish to weep.... But you yourself would not have laughed had you seen the fervor of charming Fanny. She was the picture of blissful faith. Do not scoff at her." ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... the Gospel at Athens he was called a tidings-bringer of new gods, as much to say as of a new religion; "for" (said the Athenians) "may we not know of thee what new doctrine this is?" Celsus likewise, when he of set purpose wrote against Christ, to the end he might more scornfully scoff out the Gospel by the name of novelty: "What!" saith he, "hath God after so many ages now at last and so late bethought Himself?" Eusebius also writeth that Christian religion from the beginning for very spite was ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... yourself; he is not likely to take much notice of you; and it is not for an indolent, freakish midge to scoff at a man whom she does not know, and couldn't appreciate if she ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... every holiday presents Its special round of play, And looking back on boyhood now And all the charms it knew, One day, above the rest, somehow, Seems brightest in review. That day was finest, I believe; Though many grown-ups scoff, When mother said that we could leave Our ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... likely to be based on substantial grounds. But then, as Brooks had observed, or, rather, inferred, Bill was not exactly an expert on finance, and this new deal savored of pure finance—a term which she had heard Bill scoff at more than once. At any rate, she hoped nothing ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... same time, we would by no means scoff at the counsel of our Ahitophels. A glance at the newspapers of last month, and their interminable advertising columns, is quite enough to convince us that the thing may be overdone. True, not one out of five—nay, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep, where Fame's proud temple shines afar! Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime Has felt the influence of malignant star, And waged with Fortune an eternal war! Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, And Poverty's unconquerable bar, In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropt into the grave, unpitied ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... duty, such as making converts at the Jean Jacques and elsewhere; a glass of beer and a pipe don't cost much. And Heloise is such a house-wife, so thrifty, scolds me if I buy her a ribbon, poor love! No wonder that I would pull down a society that dares to scoff at her—dares to say she is not my wife, and her children are base born. No, I have some savings left yet. War to ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the lights of his wonderful fancy, until at last it became something quite different from the original paradox, and full of truth and wisdom. But when such a paradox went off in a letter, there it remained unqualified; and they who, not having known him, scoff at his friends who claim for him the honours of a great critic, ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the raised throne of his council chamber. All the Lords of his Council were there and all in black. There was Norfolk with his yellow face who feigned to laugh and scoff, now that he had proved himself no lover of the Queen's. There was Gardiner of Winchester, sitting forward with his cruel and eager eyes upon the table. Next him was the Lord Mayor, Michael Dormer, and the Lord Chancellor. And so round the horse-shoe table against the wall sat all the other ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford |
