"Simpleton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fortune the other day," said Ellen, laughing very heartily—"and she told me to hush up and not be a fool; and I told her I really wanted to know, and she said she wouldn't make herself a simpleton if she was in my place; so I thought I might as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... statue thrill, The master thundered, "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came—— A great, green, bashful simpleton, The butt of all good-natured fun. With smile suppressed, and birch upraised, The thunderer faltered—"I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude! Before the whole set school to boot—— What evil genius put you to't?" ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... speculation. "Whut—w-whut ails him ter take arter Tangle-foot? W-w—" his great loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man, though a simpleton, was yet a man, and ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... a moment, smiling a little to himself. "What a simpleton is this Saint Felix!" he thought. "What a fool to run amuck at his own chances of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... changes which had come about in his appearance— for, after all, I told myself that it was impossible that I could have been such a simpleton as to have been mistaken on such a question as gender—was heightened by the self-evident fact that, very recently, he had been engaged in some pitched battle; some hand to hand, and, probably, discreditable encounter, from which he had borne ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... "Fair? Simpleton! it's this way every day, only worse, because this is early morning, and there's only a few about yet;" and Mrs. Murphy's ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... interruption, she laughed, the low, indolent laugh, by means of which she seemed determined, on this night, to keep anything from touching her too nearly. "How crude you men are! Because he is handsome and dances well, you reason that he must necessarily be a simpleton." ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... "Simpleton! simpleton! but thou valuest them justly. Now attend. If ever thou shouldst hear, at Oxford or London, the verses I am about to repeat, prithee do not communicate them to that fiery spirit Mat Atterend. It might not be the battle of two hundreds, but two counties; a sort of ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... friend Pertinax! Let Rome wait! Rome's affairs will outlive both of us. I suspect you intend to tell Marcia to have my name included in the next proscription list! But I am not quite such a simpleton as that. Sit down and listen. I have proof that you plotted with the governor of Antioch to have an unknown criminal executed in place of a certain Norbanus, who escaped with your connivance and has since become a follower of the highwayman Maternus. That involves you rather seriously, ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... them. I own that my heart was beating tolerably quickly all the time, but I tried to look as brave as a lion. When they saw that I had laid aside my weapon, for which I had reason to suspect they thought me a great simpleton, their own courage returned, and then rushing forward, I was soon surrounded by their motley band, each man amusing himself, very much to his satisfaction though very little to mine, by thrusting the point of his sword or spear-head at me, to try whether I could bear ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... mean to say is, that you have such a way of turning up when you're wanted very bad, that you're just the scamp to figure in a lot of story books; I wonder whether some simpleton won't undertake to use you that way. The only trouble will be that if he invents yarns about you, he'll make a fizzle of it, and, if he tells the truth, he will hardly be believed; but," added the youth, as if the mantle of prophecy had fallen on him, "it will depend a good ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... tremendous pal of mine at Eton, yet he behaved like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least for ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... there?" demanded Prince Balder, with the air of finding nothing extravagant or improbable in the sailor's yarn. The latter (a little doubting whether his interlocutor were a simpleton or a "deep one") answered, after a moment's pause,—to ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... physical and her strange spiritual charm: he could have wished her not to be providing yet another specimen of the phenomena of woman repeating herself so monotonously in the various worlds of London. The simpleton of fifty made in his soul an effort to be superior, and failed. "What is it that binds me to her?" he reflected, imagining himself to be on the edge of a divine mystery, and never expecting that he and Christine were the huge contrivances of certain ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... I insist that I must talk with somebody. I can't stand around like a simpleton, and say nothing. If you will not tell me who I may talk with, please tell me who ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... auditors of the Rota bought by certain presents, not relics or indulgences, but jewels and gold, the favour of being familiar with the best of these pampered cats who lived under the protection of the lords of the Council; the poor Touranian, all simpleton and innocent as he was, treasured up under his mattress the money given him by the good archbishop for writings and copying—hoping one day to have enough just to see a cardinal's lady-love, and trusting to God for the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... ramifications especially of an ample back staircase over which he leaned, many a time, to look far down—not deterred from his gravity even while aware that he might, for a spectator, have figured some solemn simpleton playing at hide-and-seek. Outside in fact he might himself make that ironic rapprochement; but within the walls, and in spite of the clear windows, his consistency was proof against the cynical light of ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... were enclosed the whole of the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself—a simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He is not ashamed of his old silver watch yet. It is not everybody that could act so. There must be strong legs to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... derangement of the functions of these organs, like dyspnoea, mental weakness, in some more or less indifference, a disregard of their surroundings; in short, all those symptoms of what was called at that time "Russian simpleton." ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... baker's—the baker was the old master's brother—they were hoisting sacks of meal. The windlass squeaked horribly, and in between the squeaking one could hear Master Jorgen Kofod, in a high falsetto, disputing with his son. "You're a noodle, a pitiful simpleton—whatever will become of you? Do you think we've nothing more to do than to go running out to prayer-meetings on a working day? Perhaps that will get us our daily bread? Now you just stay here, or, God's mercy, I'll break every bone in your body!" Then the wife chimed in, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... "glory," of merely stepping under a little spirt from one end of the Falls, with plenty of room to stand, and no darkness, no mystery, no nothing. Nothing but an overwhelming sense of being a cussed fool, and a simpleton, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... no simpleton, hearing these words and seeing the lady's eyes sparkle, advanced towards her with open arms, saying, 'Madam, considering that I owe it to you to say that I am now alive and having regard to that from which you delivered me, it ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... question of yours, "What did I think?"[13] But, my dear Susie, you might as well ask Gibbie Gellatly what he thought. What does it matter what any of us think? We are but simpletons, the best of us, and I am a very inconsistent and wayward simpleton. I know how to roast eggs, in the ashes, perhaps—but for the next world! Why don't you ask your squirrel what he thinks too? The great point—the one for all of us—is, not to take false words in our mouths, and ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... if you like to put it so, it was kindness and generosity and universal compassion that ruined him; but it would be nearer the truth to call him a fool and a simpleton and a blunderer; he did not realize that his proteges were carrion crows and wolves; vultures were feeding on his unfortunate liver, and he took them for friends and good comrades, showing a fine appetite just to please him. So they gnawed his bones perfectly clean, sucked out with great precision ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... was neither much better nor much worse than my neighbours in that respect; but I was so taken aback when I entered the tent and my eyes met those of its occupant, that I could only bow somewhat awkwardly, blushing like a simpleton the while. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... be fools to the world's end. Answer a fool according to his folly; supply a simpleton with the reading he craves, if it will put money in your pocket. You have discouraged poor Whelpdale in one of the most notable projects of ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... greenness. That message to my brother, with all its virus of insolence I repeated as faithfully for the spirit as, and as literally for the expressions, as my memory allowed me to do; and in that troublesome effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself exhibiting a soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother thought otherwise: he was more angry with me than with the enemy. I ought, he said, to have refused all participation in such sans cullotes insolence; to carry it was to acknowledge it as ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... any request he might choose to make. I wonder so talented a father should own a dolt like Rufus for a son. Silly-pated fellow! he has made love to me several times. I say made it, and truthfully; for no such simpleton as he could ever actually feel it in their bosoms. But then, no doubt, he thinks he is in love,—desperately so. I have no pity for him; nothing but contempt, and yet, should he propose for me to my father, I fear the result would be his ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... "Simpleton!" many of my readers will exclaim. Perhaps he was; but even if you laugh at him, I think you will hardly despise him for his simple- mindedness, for who would not rather be such a one than the ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... fact, that these persons, who are generally women, frequently make large sums of money out of the credulity of their fellow creatures. Every mail brings them letters from persons in various parts of the country. These letters are generally answered, and the contents have disgusted more than one simpleton. The information furnished is such as any casual acquaintance could give, and just as trustworthy as the reports of the "reliable gentleman just from the front," used to prove during the late war. The city custom of these impostors is about equal ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... heard you say in a sermon that the hearts of kings are in his rule and governance. As for titles and dignities, I do not care much about them while His Majesty loves me, and calls me his Angelique. They make people more civil about us; and therefore it must be a simpleton who hates or disregards them, and a hypocrite who pretends it. I am glad to be a duchess. Manon and Lizette have never tied my garter so as to hurt me since, nor has the mischievous old La Grange said anything cross or bold; on the contrary, she told me what a fine ...
— English Satires • Various
... station, but she had not been there, and on the Monday I went to London and saw the mother, who was in great distress, for she had had a letter much like mine, only more unsatisfactory, throwing out absurd hints about grandeur and prosperity—poor deluded simpleton!' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then, which is strictly in accordance with natural philosophy, being very well developed in this worthily aged country, makes the truly great very great of modesty; while the man of pewter greatness—that is, great because Our Sovereign Lady said he might take upon himself the name of Sir Simpleton Somebody! always boiling over with the froth of his own follies. With tin in his pocket, brass in his face, and never a forlorn h in his vocabulary, is he the fellow to do brown the 'rag ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... they are young and silly what they sometimes repent of when they are of riper years and understandings. I sometimes think that had I not been something of a simpleton, I might at this time be a great court lady. Now, madam," said she, again taking Belle by the hand, "do oblige me by allowing me to plait your ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... she, "that father would give me sixpence; but I know he wont, for he never goes to church, and cares nothing about the heathen, and as for mother, she would call me a simpleton if I was to ask her. I am determined I wont go to school next Sunday if I can't take something, it looks so mean; I will say I ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... clearly a simpleton, in thinking that he'll for everlasting be your friend and well-wisher. I warn you of that; he'll forsake you by reason of age ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... animal had died. But he went through street after street still carrying the saddle on his head, never pausing to look around or to speak to anybody, and at last the people began to wonder. Some said he was a simpleton, some said he was a saddle-maker advertising his wares, and some said he was a tramp who ought to be arrested ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... not in the least wish the future Mrs. Newland Archer to be a simpleton. He meant her (thanks to his enlightening companionship) to develop a social tact and readiness of wit enabling her to hold her own with the most popular married women of the "younger set," in which it was the recognised custom to attract ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... am a simpleton; and all that has been for tormenting in my heart is sheer nonsense. My crown does not prevent me from being a silly woman. But, my heart's love, forgive my folly for ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... "You simpleton," expostulated Darry, "are you going to spoil Dick's reward by letting a chump cook attend to the trout? Dick wants to cook his trout for himself, but we'll do everything else. I'll appoint myself to make the coffee ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... than flesh and blood can bear, to be ordered to do this and that by a feller that don't know half as well as you do yourself! ... Ah—you'll rue this marrying as well as he!" she added, turning to Sue. "All our family do—and nearly all everybody else's. You should have done as I did, you simpleton! And Phillotson the schoolmaster, of all men! ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... simpleton," says his Riv'rence, "don't you persave that forbye the advantage the gandher 'ud have in the length ov his neck, it 'ud be next to empossible for the turkey-cock lying thataway to see what he was about, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... said Raven, "up to Pine Grove. You've got an hour, you little simpleton. What did you ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Rivers is next door to a simpleton: he is not half-baked," retorted Mr. Hamlyn, his own temper getting up: "if I may judge by what I've seen ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... which I am familiar is the "Arabian Nights" anecdote of "The Simpleton and the Sharper" (Burton's translation, v : 83). This story is practically identical with ours, except that the Filipino version lacks the additional final comical touch of the Arabian. The owner of ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... musician. Then, when there had been enough of music, Miss Grove returned to her embroidery, and Captain Starr held her cotton and her scissors, and talked such nonsense to her, that Arthur hearing him now and then in the pauses of the conversation, thought him a great simpleton; and firmly believed that Miss Fanny listened from "pique or wounded pride," or something else, not certainly because she liked it. Not but that she seemed to like it. She smiled and responded as if she did, and was very kind and gracious to the handsome soldier, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies, 'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself: 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... winking at one another, and slyly laughing as she uttered one learned word after another, with an affected air of familiarity with scientific terms. During the walk, she took occasion to lug in all the little she knew, and at one time ventured to quote a little Latin for their edification. Poor simpleton! She thought she had produced quite an impression upon their minds. And, in truth, she had. She had fixed indelibly the impression that she was an insufferably weak and self-conceited girl. She made herself the laughing-stock of the whole company. The moment she was gone, there was one ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... became able to refer to the motive of his pauper journey from his native solitudes into the thick of such a scene, it was no wonder that the zeal of superstition totally subsided amid the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the bewildered simpleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera. Hastily escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched place of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there mooned himself asleep, in self-accusations at the thought of poor ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... was too agitated to mind her angry looks. She kept wiping the perspiration from her brow with her handkerchief, and speaking in broken sentences: "If we could only get there first—fool not to teach my sister her lesson before we went, she's such a simpleton!—can't you drive faster?" ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... All at once he comes upon the sleeping beauty, and is awakened by her charms to a hitherto unfelt consciousness. With the advent of the new passion all his dormant faculties start into life, and the seeming simpleton becomes the bright and intelligent lover. The case of Number Five is as different from that of Cymon as it could well be. All her faculties are wide awake, but one emotional side of her nature has never been called into active exercise. ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... extraordinary mixture of whimsicality and common sense, of heroic courage and craven timidity, of violence and tenderness, of impulsiveness and caution. In very truth a delightful bundle of paradox. Quick-witted and impatient, she had yet infinite toleration for the simpleton, and could on occasion suffer fools with a gladness quite unshared by her much gentler daughter or her husband. But the snob, the sycophant, and, above all, the humbug met with short shrift at her hands, and the insincere person hated her heartily. She spoke ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... earnest or to suspect the rage that was gnawing his heart, she had her way. She smiled at his coarse and open grasping, smiled at his scarcely hidden anger, and smiled at the half-insulting consent he flung at her, as if it were all a jest. And he believed her the simpleton she seemed, and did not know that he had found a mistress who would rule him with a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... that we need more than the ability merely to distinguish a genius from a simpleton, just as a physician needs something more than the ability to distinguish an athlete from a man dying of consumption. It is necessary to have a definite and accurate diagnosis, one which will differentiate more finely the many degrees and qualities ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... out all their fine clothes, and dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing. But the youngest said, 'I don't know how it is, while you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will befall us.' 'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid; have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he would have slept ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... fellow, you are just beginning to perceive what anybody who isn't a born simpleton would have seen for himself ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... simpleton!" said Henchard drily. "This promise will leave him free for you, if you want him, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... pardonable thing, because in its essentials are youth and zeal and all high, white-hot qualities whose roots strike not in the base earth. Any sage, nay, any simpleton, seeing Maxine upon the balcony, could have told her what a fool she was; but who would have told it without a pause, without a sigh for the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... dear Baisemeaux," said he, "you are a simpleton. Lose this habit of reflection when I give myself the trouble to think ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... greatly interest you," said Herzog, familiarly. "Come, be sincere. Cayrol has just refused you a sum of money. He's a simpleton! How much do you want? Will a hundred ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... contradict me? Did I ever wish For any thing in all my life, but you In that same thing oppos'd me, Sostrata? Yet now if I should ask wherein I'm wrong, Or wherefore I act thus, you do not know. Why then d'ye contradict me, simpleton? ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... honour of ordering the dinner, and looking wise at the housekeeper. Of course I shall feel very strange at going into such a house. To you I may say how much nicer it would be to go to some place that Walter and I could have to ourselves,—as you did when you married. But I am not such a simpleton as to repine at that. So much has gone as I would have it that I only feel myself to be happier than I deserve. What I shall chiefly look forward to will be your ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... at the same time enterprising, like a fox; though he was as fond of gossip as an old woman, he never let out his own affairs, while he made everyone else talk freely of theirs. He did not affect to be a simpleton, though, as so many crafty men of his sort do; indeed it would have been difficult for him to take any one in, in that way; I have never seen a sharper, keener pair of eyes than his tiny cunning little ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... would gladly specify all the various printed sources to which I am indebted. But my memory is not equal to such a feat. I can only say that I rarely write a novel without milking about two hundred heterogeneous cows into my pail, and that "A Simpleton" is no exception to my general method; that method is the true method, and the best, and if on that method I do not write prime novels, it is the fault of the man, and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... idea that that soldier could have been put to better use; that, in fact, he is entirely out of the line of duty. The position assigned him is unnatural, and the modern soldier-boy will be apt to conclude that nobody but a simpleton would be likely to wander about in solitary places, extemporizing in measured sentences; besides it is hard work, as I know from experience. I tried my hand at it the other day until my head ached, and this is the best I ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... with them; Demosthenes ruled supreme in the popular assembly, and wrote letters to the Persian officers who commanded under the king in Asia, inciting them to make war upon the Macedonian, calling him child and simpleton. But as soon as Alexander had settled matters in his own country, and came in person with his army into Boeotia, down fell the courage of the Athenians, and Demosthenes was hushed; the Thebans, deserted ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... entered a carpenter's shop, and went from one to another of the tools, begging for something to eat. Among the rest, he addressed himself to the File, and asked for the favour of a meal. The File replied in a tone of pitying contempt, "What a simpleton you must be if you imagine you will get anything from me, who invariably take from every one and never give ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... slipping into the wood and banged off a gun at him. I was out on them like a hawk, crying if they wanted to murder a poor woman's innocent bairn! Whereupon they swore down my throat that they had seen 'the auld rebel himself,' as they called the Baron. But my Davie, that some folk take for a simpleton, being in the wood, caught up the old grey cloak that his Honour had dropped to run the quicker, and came out from among the trees as we were speaking, majoring and play-acting so like his Honour that the soldier-men ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... conducted back to prison, whence he was taken later to be sewn in a sack and thrown into the Seine.[2601] Even the French admitted that Guillaume was but a simpleton and that his mission was not ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... been dreaming, little simpleton, and fancy now that you really heard what dull sleep alone was thrumming about your ears. All has been quiet and peaceful here, and no evil spirits were ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... "This poor simpleton has been robbed of four gold pieces. Take him, therefore, and throw him into prison." The Marionette, on hearing this sentence passed upon him, was thoroughly stunned. He tried to protest, but the two officers clapped their paws on his mouth and hustled him away ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... hasn't, you may be sure of that, you simpleton!" muttered Maitre Quennebert in his corner. "If you only knew what a mere novice you are at that game compared with the chevalier! If you only knew ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not going to make me believe," she said, "that you are not wise about that. It isn't clever, you know, to treat me as a simpleton." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... followed. This time he was in the wagon before Farmer Green was. And all the way down the road, until they reached the farmyard, he acted (or so Farmer Green told him!) like a simpleton. ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to carry this analysis any further. From the runner who falls to the simpleton who is hoaxed, from a state of being hoaxed to one of absentmindedness, from absentmindedness to wild enthusiasm, from wild enthusiasm to various distortions of character and will, we have followed the line of progress along which the comic becomes more and more deeply ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... man chained to his bed for two months when you can cure him with quinine in a week. You have none of those characteristics which in the eyes of the average American make an aristocrat. From the American point of view you are a simpleton, because you are always ready to sacrifice yourself for every poor dog that strays your way. You ought to return to a land where, thank the Lord, the aristocracy of the spirit, the aristocracy of ideas is still a match for that other aristocracy. You ought to return to a land ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... a simpleton? I clean forgot to lock the door; an' that kitchen-bedroom winder, I doubt that you ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... the plainer dishes. Of course, he'll be in line to get married to a rich girl some time. Well, now, to be sure, he wouldn't throw me out in the street just so, mother-naked. Although he's a little simpleton, and chatters a lot, still it's easy to tell he's a decent man. He'll provide for me with something, somehow. And, perhaps, he'll get to like me, will get used to me? I'm a simple girl, modest, and would never consent to be false ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... farmer thought the young man was a simpleton, and that he, himself, was most wise and fortunate; but the former, nothing daunted by this opinion, which he was not unconscious that the latter entertained of him, immediately hired a set of laborers, and ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... answered, "it wouldn't do me no good. I am too old for that. Now, get out of the way there—do, you simpleton," she added, turning to the idiot; "just let me pass—don't you see I am ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... "How can I, simpleton? My money is all locked up in the bargains. No, I'm tied, tied to the stake; I'll fight to the last: and, if I'm defeated and disgraced, I'll die, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... about this insolent old man. I told you from the first what would come of him. But no, you would have your own foolish way. It was easy to see that the devil's dues were in him. Yet you would not believe me! You would believe him. Simpleton as you are, you are believing him now! The poor? Fiddle-faddle and fiddlesticks! I tell you again this man is trying to put his foot on your neck. How? Oh, trust him, he's got his own schemes! Look to it, El Arby, look to it! He'll ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... speaking to a monkey, then, instead of a man? The use, I ask you, of addressing intelligent remarks to such a corporosity? My mistress and I, simpleton. This General of yours drives us from his quarters; he begrudges the morsel we eat, the rude hut that shelters us. Enough! we go; even now I make preparation. Pull this strap for me, Pepe; at least you have strength. Ah! If I were but a ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... to me, Cadet, and I might have been entrapped by it had not this cursed affair happened. La Pompadour is a simpleton beside Angelique des Meloises! My difficulty is to believe her so mad as to have ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... round eyes and innocent ways. I know your sort, I know you, mam'selle, too well! Me, I am nobody's fool, least of all yours, young woman. What goes on under my nose, I see; and if you imagine otherwise you are a bigger simpleton that you ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... man's ingenuousness. He contradicted his own story so unconsciously, that I began to think he was more of a simpleton ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... G. Volrees' wrath knew no bounds. "What do they take me to be, a knight errant of hell and a simpleton withal? I swear by every shining star that I shall probe to the bottom of this matter if it shakes the foundations of the earth," said he. He took the first train back to Almaville, his spirit crushed ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... this, he looked pityingly at his little companion, wondering how she happened to be so silly as to suppose a ship ever went "tip-side up." But he was mistaken if he considered Dotty a simpleton. The child had never gone to school. Her parents believed there would be time enough yet for her to learn a great many things; and her ignorance had never distressed them half so much ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... above-board methods, even if the former were more trouble. Lying, cheating, and deception is the universal rule among them; honesty and straightforwardness are unknown virtues. Anyone whom they detect telling the truth or acting honestly they consider a simpleton unfit to transact business. The missionaries and their families are at present tenting out, five miles south of the city, in a romantic little ravine called Kirk-dagheman, or the place of the forty mills; and on Saturday morning ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... acted—I don't know HOW you've acted. I'm ashamed of you. A girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and always say and do just the right thing, and then when it comes to herself to be such a DISGUSTING simpleton!" ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Faith with all the free kindliness which his office of physician permitted him to add to the friend. The doctor took all his advantage; he did not take more; and not Faith herself could see that there was any warmer feeling behind his pleasant and pleased eye and smile. But it is true Faith was a simpleton. She did not see that his pleasantness covered keen scrutiny. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... to hear, and the lads, all in chorus, imitated the simpleton's laugh with a "hee, hee, hee!" which sounded very ridiculous, ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... search we through the kitchen-garden, to see if there be any there, and if there be none, we have but to take him by the hand and lead him hither to the hut where he takes shelter from the rain; and then one shall mount guard while the other has him with her inside. He is such a simpleton that he will do just whatever we bid him." No word of this conversation escaped Masetto, who, being disposed to obey, hoped for nothing so much as that one of them should take him by the hand. They, meanwhile, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a fool, I believe, and Sir Nigel Anstruthers is the kind of man a simpleton would be obliged to submit to," Bettina had heard ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in saying that I am a simpleton to doubt that, if Germany had not attacked France, France would have attacked her, shows a much greater courage than he credits me with. That is Germany's contention, and if valid is her justification for dashing ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... with letters. I should have seemed to be encroaching if I had written much. Indeed it didn't come from not thinking about you. And first of all, about the money,—as to your offer, I mean. I really feel that I do not know what I ought to say to you about it, without appearing to be a simpleton. The truth is, I don't know what I ought to do, and can only trust to you not to put me wrong. I have an idea that a man ought not to accept a present of money, unless from his father, or somebody like that. And the sum you mention is so very ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... patience was nigh exhausted when he cried: Granny, it is day, and bade her leave her bed and come to the window to tell him if day were not breaking; but she answered: get thee back to thy bed, for 'tis the moon shining down the sky, simpleton. The sun won't give way an hour to the moon nor the moon an hour to the sun because thou'rt going to Arimathea. And methinks, Joseph, that to some the morrow is always better than to-day, and yesterday better than either,—a remark that puzzled Joseph and kept him from his rest. Didst never hear, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... thing to be marvelled at. One final point in connection with her may be noted, which has not always been borne in mind by those who depict good women—much after Hogarth's fashion— without a head. She is not by any means a simpleton, and it is misleading to describe her as a tender, fluttering little creature, who, because she can cook her husband's supper, and caresses him with the obsolete name of Billy, must necessarily be contemptible. On ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... bleeds for you. What is the matter with your hand, that you talk of being a life-long prisoner to your room? Pray send for Paget or Erichsen, and have yourself put right at once. No doubt that local simpleton is making a mess of your case. Perhaps while he is dabbing with lint and lotions the real remedy is the knife. I am sure amputation would be less melancholy than the despondent state of feeling which you are now suffering. If any limb of mine went wrong, I should say to the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the firm conviction that you could not possibly arrive at the journey's end. It seemed as if the one great principle of his life was that the Sons of Zeruiah must be too hard for us, and that nobody but a simpleton or a fanatic would expect anything else. 'With a manner,' he says of himself, 'which I believe suggested conceit, I had really a very low estimate of myself as compared with others. I could echo what Bishop Stanley says of himself in his journal: "My greatest obstacle to success in life ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... with the dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:— What's this game you bring to nought?— Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,— Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of the disinherited! Where the Towers of Hunger loom, Crowding in the dregs of doom; Where ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... it," said Annie, casting her bright eyes downwards: "love is as simple as milking, when people know how to do it. But you must not let her alone too long; that is my advice to you. What a simpleton you must have been not to tell me long ago. I would have made Lorna wild about you, long before this time, Johnny. But now you go into the parlour, dear, while I do your collop. Faith Snowe is not come, but Polly and Sally. Sally has made up her mind to conquer you this very blessed evening, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... — N. fool, idiot, tomfool, wiseacre, simpleton, witling[obs3], dizzard[obs3], donkey, ass; ninny, ninnyhammer[obs3]; chowderhead[obs3], chucklehead[obs3]; dolt, booby, Tom Noddy, looby[obs3], hoddy-doddy[obs3], noddy, nonny, noodle, nizy[obs3], owl; goose, goosecap[obs3]; imbecile; gaby[obs3]; radoteur[obs3], nincompoop, badaud[obs3], zany; trifler, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... said: 'I thought you'd appreciate him,' he says. 'We'll have another session with him before you leave. Perhaps we can get him into the house here this evenin'. My wife is pretty good at that, she jollies him along. Oh, he swallows it all; the poor simpleton don't know when he's bein' ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself. But if you think that I'm going outside this room in this dress, you're a perfect simpleton, Audrey. I don't mind being a fool, but I won't ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... not separate himself forever from his wife is a veritable simpleton. If a wife and husband think themselves fit for that union of friendship which exists between men, it is odious in the husband to make his wife feel ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... anybody, same as I am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they're worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can't see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and—and everything. And you wouldn't have things different, or stop making ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... that he would not be killed in the coming struggle. The coming struggle with the Xenophon was nothing compared to his present struggle. Fernando still loved Morgianna. Five years had only added to the intensity of his love; but he had once made a simpleton of himself, and he determined not to do so again. Thus two hungry souls, thirsting for each other's love, acted the cold part of casual acquaintances. Could the veil have been lifted, could the barriers have been broken down, what misery might have been spared! but it is ever thus. Humanity is ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... that with a wave of his hand. "Oh, I think she'll give it, dear simpleton!" He looked at Glenfernie now with genial affection. "Well, on the whole, and balancing one thing against another, I think that I want you to ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... sing-song speech of Shainsa. I made no answer, gesturing him to be seated. On Wolf, formal courtesy requires a series of polite non sequiturs, and while a direct question merely borders on rudeness, a direct answer is the mark of a simpleton. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... rather to the class of simpleton-stories; and in the following, from the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles' Folk Tales of Kashmir (Truebner: 1888), we have a variant of the well-known tale of the twelve men of Gotham who went one day to fish, and, before returning ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... "Oh, you little simpleton! She is not a married woman, she is a widow; and she is left extremely well off and with everything in her hands,—that is to say, she would be very well off if there was any money. A widow is in the best position of any woman. She can do what ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... produce a model of perpetual motion. He was sure he could do it, and he set to work with a resolution worthy of a nobler enterprise. When one attempt failed, he tried again, and yet again, until his friends and neighbors called him a "simpleton," and openly rebuked him for his folly. His mother began to think he never would learn any craft by which he could gain a livelihood, and she was really discouraged. He was not vicious nor indolent. He had energy and perseverance, intelligence and tact; and still ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... not so easily to be hoodwinked, but bade his men take the supposed spy to the sergeant's house at Hofwa, where four men were set over him as guards. The pretended simpleton seemed well-enough pleased, eating and drinking freely, talking cheerfully of country affairs with his guards, and spending his money freely, so that the sergeant grew to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... other artist, although he knows nothing of their arts; and this with sufficient skill to deceive children or simple people. Suppose now that somebody came to us and told us, how he had met a man who knew all that everybody knows, and better than anybody:—should we not infer him to be a simpleton who, having no discernment of truth and falsehood, had met with a wizard or enchanter, whom he fancied to be all-wise? And when we hear persons saying that Homer and the tragedians know all the arts and all ...
— The Republic • Plato
... and thought of the other dancers. "Doubtless," he mused, "she has told this beau of hers that she has left the baby with the 'looney' Man on the Beach. Perhaps I may be offered a permanent engagement as a harmless simpleton accustomed to the care of children. Mothers may cry for me. The doctor is at Eureka. Of course, he will be there to see his untranslated goddess, and condole with her over the imbecility of the Man on the Beach." Once he carelessly asked ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... little. It was not the first time that she had been called a simpleton, or some kindred name, by the out-spoken Miss Fanny; for this young lady prided herself on not being afraid to speak plainly, and tell people just what she ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... satirically, but compassionately. 'The little simpleton!' he thought to himself. 'If half of what they say of Lady Montbarry is true, Mrs. Ferrari and her trap have but a poor prospect before them. I ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... of committing the folly; and still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I, simpleton as I was, went with them,—for that was before I rode in Madam ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the elder, "I should not have regretted if his majesty had but pitched upon you; but that he should choose that little simpleton really grieves me. But I will revenge myself; and you, I think, are as much concerned as I; therefore, I propose that we should contrive measures and act in concert: communicate to me what you think the ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... a theory of mine that when we become sorry for ourselves we make our misfortunes harder to bear, because we lose courage and can't think without bias; so I cast about me for something to be glad about, and the comfort that at least we were safer with a simpleton than near a drunken Mexican came to me; so I began to view the situation with ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all—whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks assures me—"Here a mammoth-poem lies, 15 Fouled to death by butterflies." His own fault, the simpleton! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly.—AEsculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe's plaister—One strip Cools 20 your lip. Phoebus's emulsion—One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's bolus—One ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... have a dozen such friends, if friendship is all you want, and be Lady Mallow into the bargain," retorted Captain Winstanley scornfully. "You are a simpleton to send such a man away despairing. But I suppose it is idle to ask you to hear reason. I am not your father, and even if I were, I daresay you would take your own way ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... my partner's dealings with me is also quite erroneous. He did not begin to treat me coldly, as a poor simpleton, when my uncle and I so fatally quarrelled; nor did he afterwards gradually possess himself of our business and edge me out. On the contrary, he behaved to me with the ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... Gloversville, N.Y., November, 1919, and passing out of the Kingsborough Hotel we set off to have a look at the town. And if we must be honest, we were in passable good humour. To tell the truth, as Gloversville began its daily tasks in that clear lusty air and in a white dazzling sunshine, we believed, simpleton that we were, that we were on the road toward making our fortune. Now, we will have to be brief in explanation of the reason why we felt so, for it is a matter not easy to discuss with the requisite delicacy. Shortly, we were on the road—"trouping," ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... it off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the shares ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler |
