"Follies" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intensified, individual extract of themselves. The selfish vanity and profligate vice which he combined with his extraordinary intellectual gifts were as peculiar to himself as his great mental endowments; and though fools may have followed the fashion of his follies, the heart of all Europe was not stirred by a fashion of which he set the example, but by a passion for which he found the voice, indeed, but of which the key-note lay in the very temper of the time and the souls of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... her—it is true that her hands were concealed in gloves, and her feet beneath a flowing skirt. Now, Mr. Boutwood's attitude showed very plainly that the girlish charms of Florrie had produced in him a definite and familiar effect. He would have been ready to commit follies for the young woman, and to deny that she was a drudge or anything but a ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... p. 585.) and Anagrams (Vol. iv., p. 226).—Though we have ceased to practise these "literary follies," they are not without interest; and you will perhaps think it worth while to add the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... in its magic power From all the turmoil of the busy crowd, From the gay haunts where pleasure is ador'd, 'Mid the hot sick'ning glare of pomp and light; And fashion worshipp'd by a gaudy throng Of heartless idlers—from the jarring world And all its passions, follies, cares, and crimes— And bids us gaze, even in the city's heart, On such a scene as this! O fairest spot! If but the pictured semblance, the dead image Of thy majestic beauty, hath a power To wake such deep delight; if that blue lake, Over whose lifeless breast no breezes play, Those mimic mountains ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... build me a cot by that lake's verdant shore, 'Mid the world's wild turmoil I 'll mingle no more, And the tidings evoking the sigh and the tear, Of man's crimes and his follies, no ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... revenges, and except that the Jew knows better than to foreclose, you may see Americans bound in the same chains with which they themselves had formerly bound the Mexican. It seems as if certain sorts of follies, like certain sorts of grain, were natural to the soil rather than to the race that holds and tills ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boyhood, this De Manicamp, a poor gentleman, vassal-born, of the house of Gramont. M. de Manicamp, with his tact and talent had created himself a revenue in the opulent family of the celebrated marechal. From his infancy he had, with calculation beyond his age, lent his mane and complaisance to the follies of the Comte de Guiche. If his noble companion had stolen some fruit destined for Madame la Marechale, if he had broken a mirror, or put out a dog's eye, Manicamp declared himself guilty of the crime committed, and received the punishment, which ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... but their history rests, after all is said, amid a confusion of very thin speculation. There is little genius evinced in the design or execution of the Pyramids. Neither art, taste, nor religion is in any way subserved by these unequalled follies. There is no architectural excellence in them, though great skill is evinced in their construction, they are merely enormous piles of stone. Some pronounce them marvellous as evidences of ancient greatness and power. True; but if it were desirable, we could build ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... be made in favor of the boats of Cuyp, which are generally well floated in calm and sunny water; and, though rather punts or tubs than boats, have in them some elements of a slow, warm, square-sailed, sleepy grandeur—respectable always, when compared either with the flickering follies of Backhuysen, or the monstrous, unmanly, and a fortiori, unsailorly absurdities of metaphysical vessels, puffed on their way by corpulent genii, or pushed by protuberant dolphins, which Rubens and the other so-called historical painters of his ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... have a son who might pass for a Cornish man. We shall have to send this boy to Newark, in New Jersey. The distance is not so great, and we shall be certain he will not get any of your round-head notions of religion, too, Col. 'Brom, you Dutch are not altogether free from these distressing follies. ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... vols. 8vo.—These letters by the celebrated De Brosses, author of L'Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, and other works, hardly are equal to the literary reputation of the author; they paint with considerable force, though sometimes in too strong colours, the imperfections, follies, and vices of the Italians; and display good taste and judgment ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... parties and views of the House, etc. This, with the small news of my country, crops and prices, will furnish you abundant matter to treat me, while I have nothing to give you in return, but the histories of the follies of nations in their dotage. Present me in respectful and friendly terms to Mrs. Monroe, and be assured of the sincere sentiments of esteem and attachment with which I am, dear Sir, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... have a free choice in the matter and whose fortunes are not at stake, war is the greatest of follies. But if the only choice was between submission with loss of independence, and danger with the hope of preserving that independence, in such a case it is he who will not accept the risk that deserves blame, not he who will. I am the same man and do not alter, it is ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... has been said of the humour of Browning. But it is rather wit than humour which we perceive. The gentle pathos which belongs to humour, the pitiful turn of the humourist upon himself, his smile at his own follies and those of mankind, the half light, like that of evening, in which humour dwells, are wanting in Browning. It is true he has the charity of humour, though not its pathetic power. But, all the same, he is too keen, too ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Alone in a strange land, he lay for weeks dependent on the unwilling charity of strangers. The horrors of that fearful illness, the dreariness of that slow convalescence, could not be told. Helpless, homeless, friendless, with no memories of the past which his follies had not embittered, no hopes for the future which he dared to cherish, it was no wonder that he stood on the ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... not see themselves in the exaggerated type. They go their way, and thank God that they are not as these others. The critic of the London SATURDAY, beginning, perhaps, with the intention of telling sad and sober truth about a class, has ended with a list of the follies and faults of individuals, and these are set down with the keen and ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... shall describe among the Gilbert islanders. Yet I was told that many hardy, intelligent natives were inveterate Whistlers. 'Like Mahinui?' I asked, willing to have a standard; and I was told 'Yes.' Why should I wonder? Men more enlightened than my convict-catechist sit down at home to follies equally ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... subsides into the dignity of broad maturity, and begins its long, wandering, adult life, which slowly draws to a sluggish old age and final oblivion in the infinite sea. Toward the close of its meandering course, long after the follies and excesses of early life, it takes unto itself a consort, the beautiful Cauca; and together they flow, broadening and deepening as life nears its end; merging their destinies; sharing their burdens; until at ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and the same moment the man and woman of the world took a new view of the situation, looked at one another, and burst out laughing. Both these carried a safety-valve against choler—a trait that takes us into many follies, but keeps us out of others—a sense of humor. The next thing to relieve the situation was the senior's comprehensive vanity. He must recover young Arthur's reverence, which was doubtless dissolving ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... you have been the occasion of my present condition. That I did not deserve the language addressed to me, you may satisfy yourself by applying to Mr Harcourt. Driven to desperation, I have lost all I had in the world, by adding gaming to my many follies. I now am about to seek my fortune, and prosecute my search after my father. You will, therefore, return my most sincere acknowledgments to Lord Windermear, for his kind offers and intentions, and assure him that my feelings towards him will always be those of gratitude ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... right," said the king, coming out of his reverie, "last night I did scour the roofs with Tavannes and the Gondis. I wanted to try my old follies with the old companions; but my legs were not what they once were; I did not dare leap the streets; though we did jump two alleys from one roof to the next. At the second, however, Tavannes and I, holding on to a chimney, agreed ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... the follies that can be fairly placed to the charge of the human race—and, Heaven knows, they are thick as gnats in a summer sunbeam—none can be laid at more people's doors than the fickleness and vagaries of the judgment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes, merely to give you pain: I wish through these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your heart. I will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised: I have given ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... does all the world know of him?—I ask you that! A flashy, plausible, shallow-pated, carpet-bagger,—that is what all the world knows of him. The man's a political adventurer,—he snatches a precarious, and criminal, notoriety, by trading on the follies of his fellow-countrymen. He is devoid of decency, destitute of principle, and impervious to all the feelings of a gentleman. What do you know of ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... well, you must not think your sister so tender eyed as not to see your follies, alas I know your heart, and must imagine, and truly too; 'tis not your charitie can coin such sums to give away as you have done, in that you have no wisdom Isabel, no nor modesty, where nobler uses are at home; I tell you, I am ashamed ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... had been put in mind of what Doctor Franklin had said long ago, one evening in Albany, of his struggle against the faults and follies of his youth. For a moment Mr. Pinhorn was dumb ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... respect; we still remain knights, knights of love and fortune, since God has been abolished whose bodyguard we really were. But nobody can ever get woman out of our hearts; there she is, and there she will remain, and we love her, and shall continue to love her, and go on committing all kinds of follies on her account as long as there is a France on the map of Europe; and even if France were to be wiped off the map, there would always ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a fool—probably would have to do so, as the wily ones took what they could get and went off on their own; but she would never marry so incautiously as her mother had done. Why should she? If one generation does not react to the follies of the earlier generation, and seek an exactly contrary evil, what becomes of progress? Sally had her wits. She thought ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... "You admit so much, then?" And she laughed disdainfully. Then with a sudden sternness, a sudden nobility almost in the motherhood which she put forward—"Rotherby is my son," she said, "and I'll not have my son the victim of your follies as well as of your injustice. We may curb the one and the other yet, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that the period of nonage,[305] of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... "while he faithfully followed nature through all her varieties, and exposed, with inimitable skill, the infinite follies and vices of the world, he was in himself an example of many virtues." And the following poetical tribute by David Garrick is inscribed ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Hereinafter is recorded nothing more weighty than the follies of young persons, perpetrated in a lost world which when compared with your ladyship's present planet seems rather callow. Hereinafter are only love-stories, and nowadays ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... wield the pen must be careful never to add an additional pang to the mass of pangs already endured, and never to pour new reasons for hatred into the burning flood of hate. Two ways remain open for those rare free spirits which, athwart the mountain of crimes and follies, are endeavouring to break a trail for others, to find for themselves an egress. Some are courageously attempting in their respective lands to make their fellow-countrymen aware of their own faults. This is the course adopted by the valiant Englishmen ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... attained to virtue by the methods of philosophy hath his mind all in tune and good temper; he is not struck with those reproaches of conscience, which cause the acutest sense of pain and are the natural punishments of our follies; but he enjoys (the great prerogative of a good man) to be always easy ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... expressions which were necessary for refinement of language and these classicisms were exaggerated by some of the provincial classes who received their expressions from books and the theatre; such authors as Corneille, etc., were studied and their poetic licenses introduced into spoken language. These follies, pictured by Moliere, naturally afforded much amusement in cultured circles where every event of the day was discussed, from the vital affairs of the government to the aesthetic interests of art ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... me, let me remind you that you were engaged as a soldier of fortune, and well paid for your services, though you and yours disgraced the royal army by your robberies and outrages. All you gained you wasted in riot and drunkenness, and now that you are suffering for your follies, you come and make ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Chicago were better known or better liked than the stout, florid complexioned, jovial-looking Billy Fernmore, the host of this entertainment. His social adventures and the headlong follies in which his fun-loving proclivities invariably enmeshed him were only surpassed by his fondness for ridding himself ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... resistance to their march, when they chose to move forward. And here thus lay their proud and infatuated chief for weeks, dreaming of coronets, frittering away the time in feasting with his officers, and indulging himself and them in all the follies which characterized their gay and licentious camp. On the other hand, the Americans, deeply sensible of the consequence of suffering their enemies to effect their contemplated junction at Albany, were vigilant, active, and determined. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... had no talent, these Regie fellows, but that of writing and ciphering; extremely conceited too, and were capable of the most ridiculous follies. Once, for instance, they condemned a common soldier, who had hidden some pounds of tobacco, to a fine of 200 thalers. The King, on reviewing it for confirmation, wrote on the margin: 'Before confirming this sentence, I should ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... feet, there lived a good, wise man. Or rather, I should say, there had lived, for at the time of which I speak the poor old gentleman lay dying. Waiting each moment the dread summons, he fell a-musing on the life that stretched far back behind him. How full it seemed to him at that moment of follies and mistakes, bringing bitter tears not to himself alone but to others also. How much brighter a road might it have been, had he been wiser, ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... which merely consists in giving, is an idle indulgence—often an idle vice. The mere giving of money will never do the work of philanthropy. As a recent writer has said, "The crimes of the virtuous, the blasphemies of the pious, and the follies of the wise, would scarcely fill a larger volume than the cruelties of the humane. In this world a large part of the occupation of the wise has been to neutralize the efforts of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... in her own weariness and disgust. The admiring male, rashly adjusting the expression of his features and the turn of his conversation to her supposed tastes, had always been an absurd object to her, and at present seemed rather detestable. Many courses are actually pursued—follies and sins both convenient and inconvenient—without pleasure or hope of pleasure; but to solace ourselves with imagining any course beforehand, there must be some foretaste of pleasure in the shape of ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... this conversation Henry IV. expired, and his son, the Prince of Wales, was immediately proclaimed king by the title of Henry V. But his change was not alone in name or station; his vices and his follies he cast from him, as an unworthy garment, and assumed with royalty a royal mind. The debauched companions of his youth were banished from his presence and his counsels, and forbidden to approach within ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... come when our General's teaching and practice in this matter will help to lighten the burden of every bereaved family, and make every cemetery the birthplace of crowds of souls. The music and song with which we surround every deathbed and funeral, still too much tinged sometimes with the follies of traditional show, have already been used by God's Spirit to bring life and gladness to many a ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... every step you take with anxiety; and I do not believe you are indifferent to the worthiness of my conduct. Believe me, love is an overrated passion; it would be irremediably discredited but that young people, and the romancers who live upon their follies, have a perpetual interest in rehabilitating it. No relation involving divided duties and continual intercourse between two people can subsist permanently on love alone. Yet love is not to be despised when it comes from a ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... I robbed my own daughter? I have a little too much self-respect for that. Conrad is doing all he can to make our future comfortable. I have been foolish and extravagant. But I shall never be so any more. I do not care about dress or society now. I have outlived those follies." ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... began his preparations for what last night was to have brought him: a place in the last unconquered world of power. His preparation, however, had led him only through ways peopled by men: and for men and their deeds he was more than a match. Their caprices, their follies, their faithlessness, their treachery even, he had learned long since to calculate and to cope with. Women, also, he had known: many women; experienced, innocent, negative, or wicked. And those who had ventured upon his ground, he had ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... at last they reached the top. A description of the view from the summit would be looked for in vain, not because the poet was insensible to it, but, on the contrary, because the impression was too overwhelming. His whole past life, with all its follies, rose before his mind; he remembered that ten years ago that day he had quitted Bologna a young man, and turned a longing gaze toward his native country; he opened a book which then was his constant companion, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... "Dead Man's Rock!" it sang in my ears as it swept me off my feet for a moment and passed, leaving me to sink and battle in the gulf of bottomless despair. And then, as if I really drowned, my past life with all its follies, mistakes, wrecked hopes and baseless dreams, shot swiftly past in one long train. Again I saw my mother's patient, anxious smile, my father's drowned face with the salt drops trickling from his golden hair, the struggle on the rock, the inquest, the ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... character; but even the most solid and the most dazzling can scarcely compensate for that one universal sin, that want of charity, which leads English people upon all occasions to undervalue and disparage their most intimate acquaintance. How few will scruple to point out to others the follies and foibles of their dearest friends, weaknesses which they have discovered during long and familiar intercourse; and how few will hesitate to impute the very worst motives for actions which may spring from a laudable source, or be merely the result of thoughtlessness! In our most Christian ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... entrusted to my care, with no other design or intention but to enable me to assist the unfortunate and indigent. Before, therefore, the Angel of Death shall come to demand the spoil of my mortality, it is my last wish and sole intention to expiate my sins and follies by voluntary oblations of this she-camel [alluding to the Muslim Feast of the Camel] in the last month of her pregnancy, and to proclaim to all men, by this late breakfasting [alluding to the Feast of Ramadan, when food is only permitted after ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... an actress. Don't you remember the auburn-haired leading lady in the 'Follies'—the girl who sings that song about 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary'? Her stage name, you know, is Phoebe La Neige. Well, if it's she who is concerned in this case I don't think she'll be playing to-night. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... friend. If she repented of her vengeance, she did not say so. If she would fain have undone her evil deed, she never owned it. But, as time wore on, people saw a great change in her. She gave herself more to the gayeties and follies of the world; there were few fashions which she did not lead, few gay pursuits in which she did not take an active part. The character of her beauty, too, seemed changed. She had always been brilliant, but somewhat of a strange unrest came into her face and manner; the dark eyes seemed ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... of this woman, who had given Natura so much disquiet, and who indeed had been the primary cause of all his follies and misfortunes, together with the thoughts of what future inconveniencies she might involve him in, both on the account of his fortune and reputation, made him relapse into his former agitations, and afterwards rendered him extremely pensive, and he could not forbear crying out, that he would ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... exaggerates the stateliness of an ordinary soldier and gentleman, or than Mr. Collins exaggerates the fatuity of a certain kind of country clergyman. And this breath from the boisterous brotherhood of the poor lent a special seriousness and smell of reality to the whole story. The unconscious follies of Winkle and Tupman are blown away like leaves before the solid and conscious folly of Sam Weller. Moreover, the relations between Pickwick and his servant Sam are in some ways new and valuable in literature. Many comic writers had described the ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... of it for you, Eleanor,' said the young man, looking in distress at the delicate woman for whom he had so frank and constant an affection. 'Miss Foster's as strong as Samson!—or ought to be. What follies ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resists alike the appliances of wrath and love, judgment and mercy? Ah! it is easy, in general terms, to condemn vice, and to utter harsh, severe, and cutting denunciations on the guilty: it is easy to pass uncharitable comments on the inconsistencies or follies of others: but to "grieve" as our Lord did, is a different thing; to mourn over the hardness of heart, and yet to have the burning desire to teach it better things; to hate, as He did, the sin, but, like Him also, ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... only he should be saved from disaster that once! But he had not quite vowed. And, in any case, a vow to oneself is not a vow to the Virgin. He had escaped from a danger, and the recurrence of the particular danger was impossible. Why then commit follies of prudence, when the existing ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... clothed in unwonted horrors, has suddenly come for the fourth victim of that doomed family, lies the subject of our meditations, panting under his iron grasp. The afflictions of her life are now consummated. The husband of her youth, his follies and faults against her, now are forgotten in the bitter thought that he is dead, has gone unrepentant to the bar of God to give account of his priesthood—her venerable father-in-law alone, with ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... much-favored Nation, 'Will you, can you?'—much-favored Nation is answering in that manner. Astonished at its own stupidity, and taking refuge in laughter. The Eternal Destinies are very patient with some Nations; and can disregard their follies, for a long while; and have their Cromwell, have their Pitt, or what else is essential, ready for the poor Nation, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... beaten back by headwinds and blown out of her course by blizzards, and becalmed at times, so it took eighty-two days to make the voyage. A worthy old clergyman tells me this was so ordained and ordered that Benjamin might have time to meditate on the follies of youth and shape his course for the future, and I do not argue the case, for I am quite willing to admit that my friend, the ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... otherwise with tragedy; tragedy is concerned with great passions and heroic follies consecrated by ancient errors in fable and history. Electra belongs to the Spaniards, to the English, and to ourselves as much as to the Greeks; but comedy is the living portraiture of a nation's absurdities, and unless you ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... in rents, pushed her husband into becoming chief tenant of the house where they had hitherto occupied only the shop and the entresol, and advised him to remove their own appartement to the first floor. A fortunate event induced Constance to shut her eyes to the follies which Birotteau committed for her sake in fitting up the new appartement. The perfumer had just been elected judge in the commercial courts: his integrity, his well-known sense of honor, and the respect he enjoyed, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... dwarfed against his manliness She sees the poor pretension, The wants, the aims, the follies, born Of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Yes, I'll be a man; And charge thee, Pierre, whene'er thou seest my fears Betray me less, to rip this heart of mine Out of my breast, and show it for a coward's. Come, let's be gone, for from this hour I chase All little thoughts, all tender human follies Out of my bosom. Vengeance ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... he inherited the recklessness of his father. He affected extravagance and eccentricity of conduct, without yielding much to the one, or practising a great deal of the other. He was seeking notoriety; and his attempts to obtain it gave more method to his pranks and follies than belonged to the results of natural impulse and passion. He evinced occasional instances of the generous spirit of youth; but there was in them more of ostentation than of that discrimination which dignifies kindness, and makes prodigality munificence. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... been a watchword with the editors from the start. Those to whom the doctor cannot come every day have been repeatedly warned of the follies of self-treatment, and reminded that to-day it is the patient that is treated—not the disease. Those to whom the doctor cannot come in time are likewise warned that the "First-aid Rules" of this Library ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... gaining ground that I had really long ceased to be a stock gambler and deserved a much better reputation than I had. Reputation is a matter of diplomacy rather than of desert. In all my career I was never less entitled to a good reputation than in those June days; yet the disastrous gambling follies, yes, and worse, I then committed, formed the secure foundation of my reputation for conservatism and square dealing. From that time dates the decline of the habit the newspapers had of speaking of me as "Black Matt" or "Matt" Blacklock. In them, and therefore in the public mind, I began to figure ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Muse, And Princely Azaria could abuse. Zimri we know he had no cause to praise, Because he dub'd him with the name of Bays. Revenge on him did bitter Venome shed, Because he tore the Lawrel from his head; Because he durst with his proud Wit engage, And brought his Follies on the publick Stage. Tell me, Apollo, for I can't divine, Why Wives he curs'd, and prais'd the Concubine; Unless it were that he had led his life With a teeming Matron ere she was a Wife: Or that it best with ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... hold it the duty of every man though he has not the honour of serving His Majesty in public employment, not only, not to misrepresent the actions of his servants, but in matters of small concern, to wink at their follies and mistakes; I know the Jacobites and Papists our irreconcilable enemies are too watchful to lay hold of every occasion to misrepresent His Majesty and turn the faults of ambitious and self-interested servants upon the best ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... drinking companion, says the Greek proverb, who never forgets. The follies of the last debauch should be buried in eternal oblivion, in order to give full scope to the follies ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... the vestibule; he came forward smiling but rather pale, and said: "Well, Papa, we are in for it this time!" and he told him the news. The Russian mobilisation, the state of war in Germany;—Clerambault stared at him unable to comprehend, his thoughts were so far removed from these dark follies. He tried to dispute the facts, but the news was explicit, and so they went to the table, where ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... humility, and his unswerving faithfulness, your soul will feel itself so immeasurably beneath Christ that you can not help longing to be more like him. It will create in your soul an inexpressible aspiration to draw further away from this old world with its trifles and its follies and to draw nearer to Christ, to be more like him in your inner life, and to act more like him in your outward life. If you look only at self and self-interest, your spiritual aspirations will fade away; but as you look away from self and ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... was almost tempted to throw away the box and all his relatives with it; but although of course he could not be expected to think so much of his father and mother now that there was so very little of them to be fond of, still under all his follies Vance had a good sort of heart, and so he trudged away with the troublesome little Court strapped tightly to his shoulders. I am not perfectly sure that he did not take some pleasure in jolting it about, for I have more than once seen little folk bang and jerk bundles they were made ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... a letter to John Adams,[A] says: "The Wabash Prophet is more rogue than fool, if to be a rogue is not the greatest of all follies. He rose to notice while I was in the administration, and became, of course, a proper subject for me. The inquiry was made with diligence. His declared object was the reformation of his red brethren, and their return to their pristine manner of living. He pretended to be in constant communication ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... who shall have at one time, taken pleasure in seeing and hearing the noble and pathetic sentiments of tragedy, or the ridicule of human follies in a good comedy, finely represented, may, without any sort of inconsistence, not be displeased at seeing, at another time, a subject executed in dances, while the music, the decorations, all contribute to the happy diversification ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... lightly questioned his daughter. He knew the strength of her character, the high metal of her temper. Her words with Hardinge, all playful as they appeared on the surface, had, he was certain, a deeper significance. But this wonderful girl was dearly affectionate, in the midst of all her follies, and she would not grieve her father by telling him the secret of the thoughts which had moved her bosom since the morning. He had pleaded for quietude during the unquiet days that were coming. She was resolved he should have it in so far ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... Aziel. "Now take to wife the divine lady who has chosen you," and he pointed to Elissa, who lay prostrated on the rock. "Yes, take her and be happy in her love, sitting in my seat, which henceforth is yours, as ruler of the priests of El and master of their mysteries, forgetting the follies of your former faith, and spitting on its altars. Hail to you, Shadid, Lord of the Baaltis and chosen of El! Take him, you priests, and with him the divine lady, his wife, to bear them in ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... such follies away like cobwebs, and, turning back, consider who could have found his interest in such a deed. Against whom did the dead man urge him to be on guard lest Martin's papers should be spirited away? Was there some other claimant of that ill-omened peerage ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... grace and there a turn of beauty, for his famous portrait of a perfect woman which enchanted the world. So the coming man will be a composite, many in one. He will absorb into himself not the weakness, not the follies, but the strength and the virtues of other types of men. He will be a man raised to the highest power. He will be self-centred, equipoised, and ever master of himself. His sensibility will not be deadened or blunted by violation of nature's laws. His whole character will be ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... declared that "seeing" was "believing" laid his finger (whether he knew it himself or not) on one of the fundamental follies of humanity. The easiest of all evidence to receive is the evidence that requires no other judgment to decide on it than the judgment of the eye—and it will be, on that account, the evidence which humanity is most ready to credit, as long as ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... predecessors and their College Magazine. Barclay, Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson were to them what the Cafe, the Rainbow, and Rutherford's are to us. An hour's reading in these old pages absolutely confuses us, there is so much that is similar and so much that is different; the follies and amusements are so like our own, and the manner of frolicking and enjoying are so changed, that one pauses and looks about him in philosophic judgment. The muddy quadrangle is thick with living students; but in our eyes it swarms also with the phantasmal white greatcoats ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of Montaign[e]'s, that the wisest men often have friends, with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of regard. Poetry is a much easier, and more agreeable species of composition than prose, and could a man live by it, it were no unpleasant employment to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... of successes. This one imperfection, though he had as pure a soul as any in the world, was the reason that he did things which were not to be justified, that though he had the heart of Alexander so he had his infirmities, that he was guilty of unaccountable follies, that having all the talents of Francois de Guise, he did not serve the State upon some occasions as well as he ought, and that having the parts of Henri de Conde, his namesake, he did not push the faction as far as he might have done, nor did he ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... transformed at his magic touch into the milk-white hind, who must be loved as soon as she is seen. In the History, a bold and well-aimed attack, he displays, with a happy mixture of narrative and argument, the faults and follies, the changes and contradictions of our first Reformers, whose variations, as he dexterously contends, are the mark of historical error, while the perpetual unity of the Catholic Church is the sign and test of infallible truth. To my present feelings it seems incredible that I should ever believe ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... 'that just now, not half an hour before you came down, I was saying the same thing to Pancks, who looked in here. We both agreed that to travel out of safe investments is one of the most dangerous, as it is one of the most common, of those follies which often deserve ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... fault,—has been shown elsewhere. But they who have called him a cynic have spoken of him merely as a writer,—and as writer he has certainly taken upon himself the special task of barking at the vices and follies of the world around him. Any satirist might in the same way be called a cynic in so far as his satire goes. Swift was a cynic certainly. Pope was cynical when he was a satirist. Juvenal was all cynical, because he was all satirist. If that be ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... words. It means the history of English institutions, of the social, the intellectual, and the religious life of our forefathers—it means a great deal more than the life of our sovereigns, their wars, their virtues or their follies. Unhappily historic studies in England, notwithstanding the splendid impetus that has been given to them of late by the brilliant achievements of some philosophic enquirers, receive but scant encouragement, and for the most part a man's labour must be his own reward. ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... sailed forward to Italy, which he reached on the 23rd of November. And with what result? Simply to leave it again with difficulty and by stratagem, after a winter passed in one continued contest with the follies of his friends, nothing done to meet his own sense of the energy required, every advantage forfeited as it arose, ruined in the feeble execution, individual activity squandered for want of plan, and (as Cicero ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... consider the simplicity and even philosophy of the Quaker religion, the preservation it affords against the follies and difficulties of life, and the happiness to which it ultimately leads, we shall wonder that the progress of the society, in point of number, has not been greater than we find it. And when we consider, on the other hand, how ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... pass over these follies and hasten to something more exquisitely foolish. And yet I cannot, I have to clear away many dull weeds, and tread down many noxious nettles, before I can reach the one fresh and thornless rose, that bloomed for a short space upon my heart, and the fragrance of which so intoxicated my ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the sun would dry up like an Arabian well, if they could reach it, may prove to him a mine of varied reflections—a page of nature's great book, and in it he may possibly find, if he have an observing eye and an understanding heart, a type of this lower world, with all its hateful passions, its follies and virtues, its wars, rivalries, injustice ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... (alone) A weight of wine lies heavy on my head, The unconcocted follies of last night. Now all those jovial fancies, and bright hopes, Children of wine, go off like dreams. This sick vertigo here Preacheth of temperance, no sermon better. These black thoughts, and dull melancholy, That stick like burrs to the brain, will they ne'er leave me? Some men are full of choler, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... times, agitated by frightful disorders, under Caracalla, under Macrinus, under the astonishing High Priest of Emesa, Elagabalus, and he tranquilly prepared his sermons, his dogmatic writings, his pleadings, his homelies, while the Roman Empire shook on its foundations, while the follies of Asia, while the ordures of paganism were full to the brim. With the utmost sang-froid, he recommended carnal abstinence, frugality in food, sobriety in dress, while, walking in silver powder and golden sand, a tiara on his head, his garb figured ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... his illusions. He bemoaned his lot, but continued, only to have something to do. With grim sarcasm he called himself the galley-slave of pleasure. And notwithstanding all these consuming excesses, he asserted that he could not render his imagination barren. Amid the greatest follies at suppers, during the clinking of glasses; in the excitement of the dance-inspirations came to him in flashes, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... presents with a palinodia, declaring his abhorrence of their proceedings: and since then he has been perhaps more than enough an Anti-Gallican. I mean, that in his just contempt and detestation of the crimes and follies of the Revolutionists, he suffers himself to forget that the revolution itself is a process of the Divine Providence; and that as the folly of men is the wisdom of God, so are their iniquities instruments of his goodness. From Klopstock's house we walked to the ramparts, discoursing ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Since that, I have always been as a common seaman on board of different vessels; but I have been well treated and respected, and I may add, I have not been unhappy, for I felt that property would have only led me into follies, and have made me forget, that in this world we are to live so as to prepare ourselves for another. Now, William, you have the history of Masterman Ready; and I hope that there are portions of it which may prove ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... collyrium to clear our eyes from egotism, and enable us to see other people and their works. But there are vices and follies incident to whole populations and ages. Men resemble their contemporaries, even more than their progenitors. It is observed in old couples, or in persons who have been housemates for a course of years, that they grow alike; ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... fresher music which gives such peculiar attraction to the chansons, as it disused itself to the varied trills, the half-inarticulate warblings which constitute the charm of the lyrics, so it acquired the precision, the flexibility, the nettete, which satiric treatment of the follies and evil chances of life, the oddities of manners and morals, require. It became bright, if a little hard, easy, if a little undistinguished, capable of slyness, of innuendo, of "malice," but not quite so capable as it had been of the finer and ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... soft tranquil in presence of grief, Which filleth the bosom of hallowed relief, Making the pang sweet which rendeth the heart, Soothing the sorrow and easing the smart, Leading the mind from vain follies away, To seek a more sacred ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... has been no politician, but simply the indignant champion of an innocent man. And his task over, truth and justice vindicated, he asks no reward, no office; he simply desires to take up his pen once more and revert to his life work:—The delineation and exposure of the crimes, follies, and short-comings of society as now constituted, in order that those who are in politics, who control human affairs, may, in full knowledge of existing evils, do their utmost to remedy them and prepare the way for a ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... alternate work that Mr. DICKENS were to send to the London press he should find occasion to indulge in ridicule against alleged American peculiarities, or broad caricatures of our actual vanities, or other follies, we could with the utmost cheerfulness pass them by unnoted and uncondemned, if he would only now and then present us with an intellectual creation so touching and beautiful as the one before us. Indeed, we can with truth say, that ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... king, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens, when a king, worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies either ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... kind; you've done enough harm for one day. Do you want to squander all your capital of crimes and follies on a single deal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to sleep; she needs it; if you disturb her without my orders, I'll brain you —if you've got ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
