"Thick-skinned" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Rena conducted at the colored Methodist church, and when she remained to service, occupied a seat conspicuously near her own. In addition to these public demonstrations, which it was impossible to escape, or, it seemed, with so thick-skinned an individual as Wain, even to discourage, she was secretly and uncomfortably conscious that she could scarcely stir abroad without the risk of encountering one of two men, each of whom was on the lookout for an ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... they register its results. Ordinary games hardly meet all the demands of the true joust; for, in the first place, they do not include to the same extent as argument, that formidable element in modern knightly equipment, the intellect; and, secondly, because to the most thick-skinned there is something so much more mortifying, ignominious, and humiliating in being beaten in argument than in losing a game, that argument still retains, though in an attenuated and spiritualised form, something of the excitement ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... sickened; she is very sensitive, La France. There, Madame, he is gone. Now, a little shower of quassia, just to freshen you up; eh? See, Margaret, how gratefully the beautiful creature responds. Now, Jack here,"—he passed on to a Jacqueminot rose, covered with splendid crimson blossoms,—"Jack is thick-skinned, quite a rhinoceros by contrast with La France or the Bride. Here are—one—two—five—my patience! here are seven aphides on his poor leaves, and yet he has not curled up so much as the edge of one. Take him for all in all, Jack is as good a fellow as I know. Responsive, cordial, ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... rhinoceros hide. render insensible &c. adj.; anaesthetize[obs3], blunt, pall, obtund[obs3], benumb, paralyze; put under the influence of chloroform &c. n.; stupefy, stun. Adj. insensible, unfeeling, senseless, impercipient[obs3], callous, thick-skinned, pachydermatous; hard, hardened; case hardened; proof, obtuse, dull; anaesthetic; comatose, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... see the burly figure of him, this thick-skinned, seemingly opaque, perhaps sulky, almost stupid Man of Practice, pitted against some light adroit Man of Theory, all equipt with clear logic, and able anywhere to give you Why for Wherefore! The adroit Man of Theory, so light of movement, clear of utterance, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... devotion to him which certain gentle and old-fashioned ladies have—one's great-aunts, for instance—I am inclined to think that much more might be said. There is a quality, a super-refined, exquisite quality, and one with a pinch of true ironic salt in it, which the more thick-skinned among ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... her, in a bourgeois, solidly wealthy way, entirely suited to her turn of mind. She had always had servants at her beck and call, whom she could abuse illogically and treat with an utter inconsequence inherent in her nature. She had been the spoilt child of a ponderous, thick-skinned father and a very suburban mother, who, out of her unexpected prosperity, could deny her ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... the order Mammalia, the genus Sus scrofa, and the species Pachydermata, or thick-skinned; and its generic characters are, a small head, with long flexible snout truncated; 42 teeth, divided into 4 upper incisors, converging, 6 lower incisors, projecting, 2 upper and 2 lower canine, or tusks,—the former ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... glared angrily at her, but being too thick-skinned to take in the full meaning of the child's words, he caught only the familiar name she had spoken. "Miss Wayne?" he bellowed. "A nurse? ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... pigs like to roll in the mud once in awhile, just as you sometimes see a circus elephant scatter dust over his back, to drive away the flies. And even such a thick-skinned animal as a rhinoceros likes to plaster himself with mud to ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... always admitted it by pieces, as it were, or in negative propositions. We allow that we are firm of disposition; we know that we are straightforward; we show what we feel. We have opinions and principles of our own; we are not so thick-skinned as some good people, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... replied Philip with a charming smile. "I never do. Why mean anything when words come so easy without? It has occurred to me," he added innocently, "that it takes an uncommonly thick-skinned and unromantic dub to tour about covered with hay. Fancy sleeping through this wild and beautiful country when I might be grinding up lost chords to ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... economic, political, and literary life, offers an admirable model of concentration and energy. Even where it is a case of obtuseness to other civilisations, at least as high but of a different type, the verdict cannot be wholly unfavourable. The Kingdom of Earth is to the thick-skinned, and bad manners have a distinct vital value. A man, too sensitive to the rights and the charms of others, is in grave danger of futility. Either he will become a dilettante, which is the French way, or he will ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... man, irrepressible, so thick-skinned that you cannot possibly get at him so as to hurt him. It is of no use telling him to keep his distance, for he does not in the least know what you mean. I do not doubt that he has left the house with a conviction that he has gained a sincere friend ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... alarmed in their turn, rushed onwards, but upon ascending the earthwork, they were met by a deep yawning ditch, which they could not cross. The whole force turned out, and the attack on the thick-skinned intruders became general. The bullets flew so wildly that it was more dangerous for bystanders than for ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... It is a quality you are born with or without. He was born without. Sarah knows all about it. It won't hurt her; she has the methods of an ox. She goes direct to her point, and tramples over everything that stands in her way. If he were less thick-skinned she would be the death of him; but fortunately he has the hide ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... hysteric disorder up the staircase, he took his mother by the elbow, marched her into the nearest room and shut the door. There they stood and stared at each other, breathing quick, enraged breaths and looking particularly alike with their heavy-featured, thick-skinned, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... {127} Thick-skinned animals. This term has been given by Cuvier to an order in which the hog, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... them are well-intentioned persons who would be grieved to know they were injurious. Even the dull and thick-skinned are open to offence if ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... nothing which bores him so much; it restrains him within his old pursuits, his well-known habits, his tried expedients, his verified conclusions, his traditional beliefs. He is not tempted to levity or impatience, for he does not see the joke and is thick-skinned to present evils. Inconsistency puts him out: "What I says is this here, as I was a-saying yesterday," is his notion of historical eloquence and habitual discretion. He is very slow indeed to be excited,—his passions, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... sizes and colors; after them bisons, wild asses, zebras and unicorns; farther on the rhinoceri and hippopotami, and at the far edge of the forest, close to the trees that shut in the clearing, was a row of thick-skinned elephants, still as statues but with ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... without doubt, left such imprints, stamped these large traces, made a similar hole in the impenetrable underwood. But elephants are not found in America. These enormous thick-skinned quadrupeds are not natives of the New World. As yet, they have never been ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... another bathe,' said Shubin, 'only I'm afraid of being late. Look at the river; it seems to beckon us. The ancient Greeks would have beheld a nymph in it. But we are not Greeks, O nymph! we are thick-skinned Scythians.' ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... be content to bear it because the Lord is their keeper, and nothing can befall them without his will. If it be his will, then injury is for them a blessing and no calamity at all. Thus and thus only is the trustful man protected and shielded from harm. And I for one—by no means a thick-skinned or hard-nerved man-am absolutely satisfied with this arrangement, and do not wish for any other kind of immunity from danger and catastrophe. Quite as sensitive to pain as the most highly strung organism, I yet feel that the worst of it is conquered, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... less," declared Ralph, seating himself at her side on the greensward, "or if you had varnished it over with politeness, then you would probably have failed to produce any effect and I should not have been burdened with that heavy debt of gratitude which I now owe you. I was a pretty thick-skinned animal in those days, Bertha. You said the right word at the right moment; you gave me a bold and a good piece of advice, which my own ingenuity would never have suggested to me. I will not thank you, because, ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... men thus giving themselves away in their daily talk from morning till night. For Major White had always been "on" when there was fighting. By dint of exchanging and volunteering and asking, and generally bothering people in a thick-skinned, dull way, he always managed to get to the front, where his competitors—the handful of modern knights-errant who mean to make a career in the army, and inevitably succeed—were not afraid of him, and laughingly ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... of cases, the nurse or governess hasn't it to give. Love is something which can't be bought with money. Many a governess is a discontented person, who thinks she is worthy of better things. Many a nurse is thick-skinned and bad-tempered. A large proportion of both have much more tender feeling for their wages and their selfish interests, than they have for the child entrusted to their care. Should anything different be expected? It is not ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... no need to hide things, and Barbro was now herself most eager to get it done at once. Axel was not any put out at her eagerness, and it did not make him any way suspicious; far from it, he was flattered and encouraged to find her so. Ay, he was a worker in the fields, no doubt, a thick-skinned fellow, not used to looking over fine at things, nothing delicate beyond measure; there were things he was obliged to do, and he looked to what was useful first of all. Moreover, here was Barbro all new and pretty again, and nice to him, almost sweeter than before. Like an apple ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... alone. I wonder if I really keep them better? But if not, may GOD, I pray Him, send me back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which He gives in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful of one's own comfort and one's own property, more self-satisfied in leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe that one is ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... nevertheless knew it. The preachers, moreover, were less than human. They preached interminable sermons. Discourses lasting an hour and a half were common, and even lengthier ones were not unusual. The parsons were hopelessly thick-skinned, moreover, and impervious to hints. When on one occasion, at which Sylvane was present, the congregation began to consult their watches, the preacher, instead of bringing his sermon to a close, exclaimed, "See here, you don't want to be lookin' at your watches. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the face of every one of them. The horse is a true citizen, and is entirely at home in the paved streets; but the ox—what a complete embodiment of all rustic and rural things! Slow, deliberate, thick-skinned, powerful, hulky, ruminating, fragrant-breathed, when he came to town the spirit and suggestion of all Georgics and Bucolics came with him. Oh, citizen, was it only a plodding, unsightly brute that went by? Was there no chord in your bosom, long silent, that sweetly vibrated ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Hammond who married poor Matilda, and the Jasper Losely whose father was transported, that unscrupulous rogue has no longer any care to conceal. It is true that the revelation of this identity would now be of slight moment to a man of the world-as thick-skinned as myself, for instance; but to you it would be disagreeable—there is no denying that—and therefore, in short, when Mr. Poole advises a compromise, by which Jasper could be secured from want and yourself from annoyance, I am of the same opinion as ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... conceived. The personages with whose names my pages had been familiar, and perhaps even the minds of some of my readers—the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks, Greshams, and Daubeneys—had been more or less portraits, not of living men, but of living political characters. The strong-minded, thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, either of the Government or of the Opposition, had been very easy to describe, and had required no imagination to conceive. The character reproduces itself from generation to generation; and as it does so, becomes shorn in a wonderful ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... all possible means.' 'True it is, madam,' he answered, 'your Grace and I have been at divers controversies, in the which I never perceived your Grace to be offended at me.' Knox's complacency is sometimes thick-skinned: but he was not wrong in thinking that Mary, a woman with immensely more brains than the generality of her posthumous admirers, had from the first understood and, perhaps, half liked her uncompromising adversary, and that she had at least enjoyed the dialectic ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... I had to shut him up rather rudely; but Bobby is thick-skinned and, like some fellows one meets, a dangerous gossip, and the last man ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... by the familiar maple, but with huge dust-covered cactus plants, The bullocks all draw with their horns, and the indolent driver sits on the yoke, urging forward his sleepy animals with a poke of his cane, on the end of which he has fastened a sharp nail. The buey is very thick-skinned and would not heed a whip. The wheels of the cart are often cut from a solid piece of wood, and are fastened on with great hardwood pins in a most primitive style. Soon after sunset all retire ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... most effective. Even the thick-skinned moose is not exempt from discomfort. At certain seasons the canoe voyager in the Far North will run upon a dozen in the course of a day's travel, standing nose-deep in the river merely to escape the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... aloud: '"The hog belongs to the order Mammalia, the genus sus scrofa, and the species pachydermata, or thick-skinned. Its generic characters are a long, flexible snout, forty-two teeth, cloven feet, furnished with four toes, and a tail, which is small, short, and twisted, while, in some varieties, this appendage ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... curled edged leaves, stiff branches, thick-skinned berries, sometimes pink flowers, beans generally smaller than in C. liberica, but of little ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... great reason why she did not hear of the gossip against Molly as early as any one, was that, although she was not the rose, she lived near the rose. Besides, she was of so tender a nature that even thick-skinned Mrs Goodenough was unwilling to say what would give Miss Phoebe pain; and it was the new-comer Mrs. Dawes, who in all ignorance alluded to the town's talk, as to something of which Miss Phoebe must be aware. Then Miss Phoebe poured down her questions, although ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a good shepherd among the men, though he had recently lost the head foremanship by a spree complicated with language and violence. He looked like one of the Merian bulls, with broad short neck and short curly hair above a thick-skinned deeply wrinkled low forehead. He never undressed, but was always seen, as now, in heavy shoes and blue-gray woolen socks tucked over the bottoms of his overalls. He was gruff and ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... didn't. It is my opinion you can't insult Cyrus Brisk. He is too thick-skinned. He wrote another letter, and thanked me for correcting his mistakes, and said it made him feel glad because it showed I was beginning to take an interest in him when I wanted him to spell better. Did you ever? Miss Marwood ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... day, collecting promised Red Cross supplies with Abner Crawford's old grey horse. One of the Ingleside horses was lame and the doctor needed the other, so there was nothing for it but the Crawford nag, a placid, unhasting, thick-skinned creature with an amiable habit of stopping every few yards to kick a fly off one leg with the foot of the other. Rilla felt that this, coupled with the fact that the Germans were only fifty miles from Paris, was hardly to be endured. But she started off gallantly on an errand fraught with ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... scorners delight in their scorning (delight in laughing at what is good), and fools hate knowledge—hate to think earnestly or steadily about anything—the stupidity of the ass, who is too stubborn and thick-skinned to turn out of his way for any one—or the stupidity of the swine, who cares for his food and nothing further—or worse than all, the stupidity of the ape, who cares for nothing but play and curiosity, and the vain and frivolous ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... When I passed the parting with Tilly that night I gave her the word that I was going to be around for a week or so, and that I wanted to see more of her. Not thick-skinned, her kind, when it came to showing like and dislike, and she looked her pleasure for the honest girl she was. Ay, a striking lass, and I didn't wonder that Chief George was ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... chair, and has perhaps no chance of favour from the High Church for having been willing to accept it. Even if they now give him promotion, there will be a great outcry on his having left one institution to join another. He would be thick-skinned if he stands the clamour. Yet he has to all appearance rather sacrificed than advanced his interest. However, I say again, the Bishops ought ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... She swears she has given up drinking—not touched a spoonful since I saw her last. She's as superstitious as an old woman; and yet she will swear to that lie with oaths that make me uncomfortable, although I am pretty thick-skinned in religious matters. Then she goes drivelling on about me having encouraged her to drink at first, and then turned upon her and deserted her when I found out the mischief I had done. I used to stand plenty of ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... collar them, drag them out, and send them home with rousing admonition. [Footnote: Lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by Cabot, Memoir of Emerson, I. 10. ] Few dared gainsay him, by reason both of his irritable temper and of the thick-skinned insensibility that encased him like armor of proof. And while his pachydermatous nature made him invulnerable as a rhinoceros, he had at the same time a rough and ready humor that supplied keen weapons for the warfare of words and made ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... Motley to deny or confirm the assertion of the letter that he was a "thorough flunky" and "un-American functionary." But he did insult him with various questions suggested by the anonymous letter,—questions that must have been felt as an indignity by the most thick-skinned ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "I only polish a good apple, never peel it. It's a mistake, except with thick-skinned ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison |
