"White-livered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for, indeed, three such antics do not amount to a man. For Bardolph,—he is white-livered, and red-faced; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol,—he hath a killing tongue, and a quiet sword; by the means whereof 'a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,—he hath heard, that men of a few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that damned rooibaatje," he broke out. "You used not to be like this before. Curse him, the white-livered Englishman! I will be even with him yet; and I tell you what it is, Bessie: you shall marry me, whether you like or no. Look here, do you think I am the sort of man to play with? You go to Wakkerstroom and ask what sort of a man Frank Muller is. See! I want you—I ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... "Thou white-livered [our ancestors believed literally that cowards had white livers] dolt!" cried Dr Thorpe sharply, and took the matchlock out of his hands. "Go behind for a child ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... but if you get that in your mind how can you fight?" grandfather demanded. "Why, if any Hussar had spoken of funerals we'd called him white-livered, that's what we would! We cheered till we was hoarse; we danced and hugged one another; we rattled our sabres in our scabbards; we sang rip-roaring death-or-glory songs. When you're going to war you want to sing and shout. That's the way to keep ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... away from a kiss. Why, when I stepped on her train jest as I swung her up the aisle, if you believe me, all she said was, 'I hope you didn't hurt yo' foot'; an', bless my boots, ten minutes later, comin' out of church, she whispered in my year, 'You white-livered, hulkin' hound, you, get off my veil!' Well, well, it's sad how the ceremony can change ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... a difference, lad," Cross pointed out, setting down the tankard of beer from which he had been drinking. "You talk sometimes that white-livered stuff about not hitting a man back if he wants to hit you, and you drag in your conscience, and prate about all men being brothers, and that sort of twaddle. A full-blooded Englishman don't like it, because we are all of us out to protect what we've got, any way ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... white-livered wretch!" the scold again yelled. At this moment she went soaring off into the air. A piercing shriek came from her lips as she found herself swinging out over the pond. "I'll ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... cotched his load, down north, lean seasons or plenty, in a way t' make the graybeards an' boasters blink in every tickle o' the Shore. A fish-killer o' parts he was: no great spectacle on the roads o' harbor, though—a mild, backward, white-livered little man ashore, yieldin' the path t' every dog o' Rickity Tickle. 'I gets my fish in season,' says he, 'an' I got a right t' mind my business between whiles.' But once fair out t' sea, with fish t' be got, an' the season dirty, the devil hisself would drive a schooner no harder than ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... "You white-livered dog!" I broke out. "Do you dare to tell me you're an Englishman, and won't fight? But I'll stand no more of this! I leave this place, where I've been insulted! Here! what's to pay? Pay yourself!" I went ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Let the white-livered cowards have their way," the old sailor said, contemptuously. "Put their captain on the top of them. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... said, 'I'm a white-livered cur at the best, and you mustn't spare me. But you're not like any yachtsman I ever met before, or any sailor of any sort. You're so casual and quiet in the extraordinary things you do. I believe I should like you better if you let fly a volley of deep-sea oaths ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... what shall we say of them? And you young chaps, healthy, strong, unmarried, without home ties, what if you refuse to respond to the call of your country? I will tell you what I think of you: you are white-livered cowards." ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... "that was Monsieur's reason for coming to Azay-le-Roi! And she won't have him! All women are fools, and these great ladies seem to be the biggest fools of all. She will not find his equal among the white-livered aristocrats who swarm around her. I wish I could revenge Monsieur for this," he said, savagely, and jumping on his horse he rode after the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... or may gain by other means is my own property, with which I shall do as I like; but there are one or two pieces of information which I carry under my doublet, and which you may not be sorry to hear. As for you. Sir George Barkley, the secret I have to reveal to you is, that you are a white-livered coward. This I shall tell to nobody but yourself—Ha, ha, ha!—because your friends know it already, and to your enemies you will never do any harm. Fenwick, you are just sufficient of a fool to get yourself ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... villain's taken a toss, darling," said Dick, sitting with an arm round her. "And the white-livered accomplice is dithering with funk in there." And he thumped the cushion of the partition. "We shall pull up at Todsmoor in a few minutes. Let's compose ourselves. You must be asleep in ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... there was something more in you than texts and litanies and the Athanasian creed, I'll be hanged if I'd ever have let you look twice at Edith. That girl has got blood in her veins, David; she's not to be thrown away on any lantern-jawed, white-livered doctor of ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... as a fool," he said afterwards in the bosom of his family; "a white-livered fool who hasn't the nerve to look at a ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from the palace by a handful of men and none of you infernal rascals—none of you white-livered abortions lifted a hand to save her—curse on you a thousand times. Out of my way, you churls!" And snatching up coat and hat and sword I rushed furiously down the long, marble stairs just as the short ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... hear it!" cried St. Maur, and half a dozen young bloods without vests, and with shirt-bosoms falling over their waistbands nearly to the knee. "Do let us hear, by all means, what the white-livered fellow has ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... man smile, and do a murder? Therefore I hate the memory of Brutus, I mean the latter, so cried up in story. Caesar did ill, but did it in the sun, And foremost in the field; but sneaking Brutus, Whom none but cowards and white-livered knaves Would dare commend, lagging behind his fellows, His dagger in his bosom, stabbed his father. This is a blot, which Tully's eloquence Could ne'er wipe off, though the mistaken man Makes bold to call those ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... will plant. Can fear strike a CAESAR—a Russian to boot? Can a ROMANOFF stoop to mere cowardly cant? Forbid it traditions of Muscovite pride! An Autocrat's place is the Conqueror's car, But he who that chariot in triumph would ride, Must not earn a name as the White-livered CZAR! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... "Well, he's a white-livered scoundrel. He's a type of your Northern gentlemen. A Southern man would starve rather than act so pusillanimously. Of course I'm not going to talk of family secrets, or say anything not befitting a high-toned gentleman, but I taught that snob ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... always most Irish when most moved. "I reckon," he went on, and the rolling intonation fell from his tongue like a faint breath from the green isle itself, "I reckon I did it just to show my friends what a measly, coyote, white-livered, tackey, ornery, spavined, colicky, mangy, blitherin' sort of a beast I am. Sure, now, Judge, I just wanted everybody to know what a gee-whillikined damn fool I can be if I try. And they know, now. Oh, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... Nicolson! Stand back, you white-livered hounds! First one of you lays a hand on me or Daddy Nep gets his head blown off! Damn you, Mosely! don't make me tell you again to ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... fight bigger boys and leave smaller boys in peace, instructions which he was at first inclined to reverse,—and put him in the way to be an honest, fearless man, when he was in danger of becoming a white-faced and white-livered spooney. And that Noisy Boy himself, perversely declining to verify Mr. Abbott's decorous prophecies, has not turned out badly, after all, but has Reverend before his name and reverence in his heart, and has his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... "I know I'm white-livered," I said with a species of laugh. "I never crowd and stare when somebody is hurt in the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... mean?" he said. "Did you only bring one glass? Are you too damn good to drink with me? Then drink by yourself, you white-livered coyote!" ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... know the white-livered Greasers better than any of you, don't mistake me," replied Belding. He was pale with rage, but kept command ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... "Jarnac, dismount six of thy archers, and shoot me this white-livered cur dead where ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade |
