"Foolery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not pieced Out with distorted, artificial folly, Even if the critics praise thee for 't less wholly. Thou hast no right to spoil the shape most fitting, Most true, of woman, with meows and spitting! And mind, all foolery and making faces The childish simpleness of Vice disgraces. Thou shouldst—to-day I speak emphatically— Speak naturally and not unnaturally, For the first principle in every art, Since earliest times, was ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... suffered them to be as kind to each other as they pleased. At last, turning quickly round, while the maiden, suspecting what was coming, and pretending to be abashed, ran behind her mother, he said, 'To end this foolery, what say you to marrying my daughter? She is well brought up, and is the most industrious girl in the village. She will flap more wall with her tail in a day than any maiden in the nation; she will gnaw down a larger tree betwixt the rising of the ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... loth to anger him too much; what fine foolery is this in a woman, to use those men most forwardly they love most? If I should lose him thus, I were rightly served. I hope he's not so much himself, to take it to th'heart: how now? will he ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... sceleratum non habent ortum, that have not a wicked beginning; aut qui vi et dolo eo fastigii non ascendunt, as that plebeian in [3635]Machiavel in a set oration proved to his fellows, that do not rise by knavery, force, foolery, villainy, or such indirect means. "They are commonly able that are wealthy; virtue and riches seldom settle on one man: who then sees not the beginning of nobility? spoils enrich one, usury another, treason a third, witchcraft a fourth, flattery a fifth, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the fine speech such as we find it in the ancient poets and historians and dramatists and satirists. He loves a monologue that passes from mockery to regret, that gathers up by the way anecdote and history and essay and foolery, that is half a narrative of things seen and half an irresponsible imagination. He can describe a runaway horse with the farcical realism of the authors of Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., can parody a judge, can paint a portrait, ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... REDMOND. Enough of this foolery. Enough of the deliberate falsehood of Ministers. I go to Ireland at once, where half a million resolute, dour, determined men are ready to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... God of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Almighty Dollar'; and I piped up, 'Right you are, uncle.' I was only a baby then." He added these last words reflectively, as if pondering on the reminiscence, and gained the object of his foolery—that she spoke. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... divine, and partly more biting than may beseem the modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the ancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would have them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to consider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that has been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages since, did the like with the battle of ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... some resemblance of this voice to that of some one I have known," he said to himself; but a shiver ran over him as he questioned the old man. "If you are the grandfather of the psychic," he said, "I would like to ask you if you think it fair to a young girl to use her against her will for such foolery as this?" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... of tom-foolery. General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to sturdy Western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Squeers. "If the young man comes to be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don't want any foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone and treacle, partly because if they hadn't something or other in the way of medicine they 'd be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... as she is now," replied he, "mightily offended that people should have their ears open to any sort of foolery, and shut to words of truth ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... journey, startled them in the midst of their adieus; and bursting from the arms of her companion, Meeta plunged deeper into the woods to escape her father's eye. When Carl returned in the evening he handed her a small parcel, saying, "There's some foolery that Ernest bought for you, Meeta. Silly boy! I hope they'll teach him in Germany to take ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... obliged to follow, but she laid her head back and struggled. Then the billy goat gathered all his force, set his horns high in the air, and tugged at the band. He would show her that he was not to be kept back by any such foolery! ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... This pace in foolery had been set at the Duke's House, but Nell out-did them, with her broad-brimmed hat as large as a cart-wheel and her quaint waist-belt; for was not her hat larger by half than that at the rival house and her ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... dear, though incomplete. Returning to Rome, I find the news pronounced official, that the viceroy Ranieri has capitulated at Verona; that Italy is free, independent, and one. I trust this will prove no April-foolery, no premature news; it seems too good, too speedy a realization of hope, to have come on earth, and can only be answered in the words of the proclamation made yesterday ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and went on: "People always say such foolery, miss. I'll make answer hencefor'ard, 'Of course a lady like Miss Everdene can't love him'; I'll say it out in plain black ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... whose bewitching style, Life's tedious minutes can beguile, Makes us, with him, forget uneasy care, And not remember what we are. Who by a charm, which no one can withstand, Enchanting poison can command, Can make us share his pleasing foolery, And from dull reason set ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... away before," she said as she fell in beside him. "The old man was working with his foolery and it was impossible to get him to go to bed. Once or twice I yawned, but he ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... "It was plain damn foolery! I told you I believed I'd seen some one spying around the mine, and after I'd left you I didn't feel so sure that I'd cleared him out. I woke those fools up," his glance at the dead matched his curse at them, "and said ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... like a comic opera of Gilbert and Sullivan. There is life and movement; but it is a scenic and burlesque life. There is wit, criticism, and caricature;, but it does not cut deep, and it is neither hot nor fierce. There is some pleasant tom-foolery; but at a comic opera we enjoy this graceful nonsense. We see in every page the trace of a powerful mind; but it is a mind laughing at its own creatures, at itself, at us. Lothair would be a work of art, if it were explicitly presented as a ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... this," he said sharply. "And don't start your old favorite knife act. This is no time for foolery." ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... not apply his philosophy to himself. "It's the dead finish," he said dejectedly; "never struck anything like it before. Twice over too," he added. "First tinware and now this foolery "; and he kicked savagely at the offending tin, sending a shower of raisins dancing out into ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the pressed grasses where she had been, but he did not say a word. He would not give her that satisfaction; and he told himself grimly that he had his opinion of a girl who would waste time in foolery, out here in the cold—with ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... what had happened? Andros, his face mottled with pallor, was pulling himself together, and striving to resume the arrogant insolence of his customary bearing. He opens his mouth to speak, but only a husky murmur replaces the harsh stridency of his usual utterance. "What devilish foolery is this—" But ere he can get further, some bucolic statesman brings his massive palm down on the table with a bang that makes the oaken plank crack, and thunders ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... afraid of Spirits.} They are never fearful in the Night, nor do the Thoughts of Spirits ever trouble them; such as the many Hobgoblins and Bugbears that we suck in with our Milk, and the Foolery of our Nurses and Servants suggest to us; who by their idle Tales of Fairies, and Witches, make such Impressions on our tender Years, that at Maturity, we carry Pigmies Souls, in Giants Bodies, and ever after are thereby so much depriv'd of Reason, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... "this is too bad; go forward now and cut this foolery short. You will be too drunk to cook the dinner if you ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... here. Mar them not till thou'st enjoyed them: then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. Stand forth, lad. Now say thy foolery again, an thou'st not forgot it. Name ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "Carry thy foolery to some other market. I am in no jesting humour," said Henry. "Go hence; I will see ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... not again touch Mrs. Smiley's hand. Immediately thereafter the sound of soft drumming came from the piano at a point entirely out of reach of the psychic, and at my request the drummer kept time to my whistling. After some minutes of this foolery "the force" left the piano abruptly, as if with a leap, and dropped to the middle of the table. A light, fumbling noise followed, and I called out: "Is every hand in ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... Rights Convention, a failure. Could I see it made up of women whose dress would indicate their translation from cowardice to courage; from slavery to freedom; from the kingdom of fancy and fashion and foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness, then would I hope for the elevation of woman, aye, and of man too, as perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the "Bloomer dress" is unspeakably better than the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... told her, "if you had tried this foolery, I would have choked you, and thrown what was left in ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... nurse would not put such foolery in the girl's head," said Mrs Harrington impatiently. "There be no mermaids ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... forward to that life of dull foolery," thought she, as the mossy bastions of Besancon drifted from her horizon—she was journeying up alone, Janet staying on with one of the Saint Berthe women as chaperone. "It is foolery and it is dull. I don't see how grown-up people endure it, unless they've never known any ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... to bury you in. Half of what you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so even on your own account, and particularly on mother's account. The eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother while she lives; if you will not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her; at ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... in both. Ask Thomas Hardy, ask George Meredith, ask Joseph Conrad, ask H.G. Wells, ask Murray Gilchrist, ask George Moore, ask Eden Phillpotts, ask "Q," ask Henry James. Lo! I say to all facile gabblers about the "art of the short story," as the late "C.-B." said to Mr. Balfour: "Enough of this foolery!" It is of a piece with the notion that a fine sonnet is more difficult than a ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and in fact, as men say, takes away from us the power of thinking at all. Whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... Cross, looking at me, "you do look like the captain himself, and might almost go on board and read the articles of war; but, surely, Master Keene," added he, looking at the captain as he lay senseless in bed, "this is no time for foolery of this sort." ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... manage things better," said an old one- eyed captain, with the blue-and-white riband for St. Vincent peeping out of his third buttonhole. "They sheer away their heads if they get up to any foolery. Did ever a vessel come out of Toulon as my 38-gun frigate did from Plymouth last year, with her masts rolling about until her shrouds were like iron bars on one side and hanging in festoons upon the other? The meanest ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nothing; and Cluffe, who loved money as well, at least, as any man in his Majesty's service, would have seen the two tribes as extinct as the dodo, before he would have expended sixpence upon such tom-foolery, had it not been for Dangerfield's investments in animated nature. 'The hound! as if two could not play at that game.' But he had an uneasy and bitter presentiment that they were birds of paradise, and fifty other cursed birds beside, and that in this costly competition Dangerfield ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... heartily, and crying, "Vive la gaite!"—then resuming his task, looking into the glass with grave face, on which, however, a grin would soon break out anew, and all his pranks would be repeated with variations. He turned this foolery to philosophy, by observing that mirth contributed to goodness of heart, and to make us love our fellow-creatures. Conversing with him in the evening, he affirmed, with evident belief in the truth of what he said, that he would have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Maida is alone with these young dogs, he throws gravity aside, and plays the boy as much as any of them; but he is ashamed to do so in our company, and seems to say, "Ha' done with your nonsense, youngsters; what will the laird and that other gentleman think of me if I give way to such foolery?" A little volume might almost be made on Sir Walter Scott and his dogs. Wilkie, Allan, and especially Sir Edwin Landseer, have handed down to us the portraits of many of them. His works, and biography by Lockhart, and the writings of his many visitors, would ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... he, "what foolery is this? The woman is mad. I have just come from Capri, with this boy. Many of you know me, for I am often here; and now, when I come, am I to be insulted ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... the bridegroom out of a drift—dodging a herd of Highland cattle that thought he had come too near their calves, or driving off Drumsheugh's polled Angus bull with contumely when he was threatening Mrs. Macfadyen. If he met the bairns coming from school, the Glen rang with the foolery. When Willie Harley broke his leg, Carmichael brought his dog Jackie—I could tell things of that dog—and devised dramatic entertainments of such attraction that Jamie Soutar declared them no better than the theatre, and threatened Carmichael with a skep of honey ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... King's foolery roused the spirit of mischief in the two girls, and faster and faster flew the drops of water from one to another of ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... the common use. It is in such places—your finger on your lips and your feet a-tiptoe on the stairs—that you will hide away from baser uses the stowage of moonlight stuff and such other gaseous and delightful foolery as may lie ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... the matron, taking up the bundle and examining it. "Ye'n sweltered yoursen, I reckon, running that fool's race. An' here, they'n gi'en you lots o' good grogram and flannel, as should ha' been gi'en by good rights to them as had the sense to keep away from such foolery. Ye might spare me a bit o' this grogram to make clothes for the lad—ye war ne'er ill-natured, Bess; I ne'er said that ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the telegram says. 'Will wire again in a few hours'. I suppose it's the same old story: an explosive and a panic. Somebody probably tried to stir a fire with a stick of frozen dynamite, or some such foolery as that." The scorn in the words came from the effort at self-mastery. Then the professor rose and looked about him vaguely for his hat. When he had found it, "Come along," he bade Brenton shortly. "We've got to get it over, even if it kills her. I believe in ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... start aside from the rules of virtue, has left it upon record, that Pericles, when he was sick, showed one of his friends that came to visit him, an amulet or charm that the women had hung about his neck; as much as to say, that he was very sick indeed when he would admit of such a foolery as ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... beside yourself, there exists outside of Cape Cod another individual who would like to see Mr. Thomas Foolery move in state most perfect, just send him over here: he must be present on that day when the little Lord Mayor makes a great man of himself. A great man is the Lord Mayor on that day on which he sacrifices ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... supposable. The fact that phenomena can be counterfeited is no reason for concluding they do not exist. In experiments with magnetism and hypnotic suggestion, many delusions beset the experimenters, and there is more or less intentional foolery on the part of the subjects. Thus have I seen, at the prison-hospital of Salpetriere and elsewhere, young women outrageously deceiving the most serious investigators, who did not in the least suspect such insincerity. At market fairs there may often be seen ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... mock-seriousness with which we discussed hypnotic suggestion and psychic force! The bitterness grew sickening, as Corcoran, hearing the long whistle of the engine, said that we were coming into Barslow. The tragic foolery of giving that name to ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... like saying with Mr. Harris, when it is asked, "what a Conjunction is?" that there are conjunctions copulative, conjunctions disjunctive, and as many other frivolous varieties of the species as any one chooses to hunt out "with laborious foolery." Our author hit upon his parent-discovery in the course of a law-suit, while he was examining, with jealous watchfulness, the meaning of words to prevent being entrapped by them; or rather, this circumstance might itself be traced to the habit of satisfying ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... or The Tug of War was played upon the intervening space. The party of the priest prevailed; the King's men were dragged in a body into the opposite temple; and the tabus were maintained. None employed in this momentous foolery were informed of its significance; the King's misgivings were studiously concealed; but there is little doubt he continued to cherish them in secret. At his death, he had another memorable word, testifying to his old preoccupation for his son's estate: implying besides ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other. "If you want to keep warm, go indoors and put on a great-coat, but don't fag us to death with that foolery." ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... birding-pieces, who would elude the statutes against gunnes, to be called to account "for the shallow-brain'd idlenesse of their ridiculous foolery." ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... old men chuckle at the foolery of the moment. The general folds away the evening ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... said Mr. Macdermott, simply and fervently. "At processions, you know. It's a great Catholic day—like August 15th—I forget why. Some Catholic foolery. The birthday of the Virgin Mary, I fancy. Anyhow we throw stones.... I wonder will there be ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... her plans. And so I could not sleep for a long time; not, indeed, until the light of morning began to stream through the cottage window, and then I felt to laugh at it all. Betsey's signs and Betsey's words were so much foolery, while the conversation about the buried treasure was no more true than the stories which were believed in superstitious days. Besides, thoughts of Naomi drove away all else, although everything came back to me afterward. When my fears went, however, sleep came to my eyes, and I did ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... stones, and altogether disgusted with the childish gimcrackery of royalty. Great Alexander, I thought to myself, who would be a Czar of Russia, and have to make his living at the expense of all this sort of tom-foolery? Who would abide even for a day in a bazar of curiosity-shops, bothered out of his wits by servants and soldiers, and the flare and glitter of jewelry? It certainly all looked very shallow and troublesome to a plain man, destitute by nature ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... no appearance of fancie in him, vnlesse it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises, as to bee a Dutchman to day, a Frenchman to morrow: vnlesse hee haue a fancy to this foolery, as it appeares hee hath, hee is no foole for fancy, as you would haue it to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... else then. Daisy, Daisy," said he, shaking her shoulders gently, "this religious foolery is spoiling you. Don't you go and make yourself stupid. Why I don't know you. What is all this ridiculous ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to-morrow," Charlie said. "You'll forget this foolery of mine?" gripping Fisher's hand hard for ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... restless is she, and beyond measure full of failings; she has a dangerous desire to make herself observed, and to excite an interest. Her activity shows itself in destructiveness; yet she is good-hearted and most generous. In every kind of foolery she is a most willing ally with Henrik and Eva, whenever they will grant her so much favour; and if these three be heard whispering together, one may be quite sure that some roguery or other is on foot. There exists already, however, so ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... give up my thoughts completely to their matter; whereas in German I am constantly being disturbed by the author's impudence and his continual attempts to establish his own orthographical freaks and absurd ideas— the swaggering foolery of which disgusts me. It is really a painful sight to see a fine old language, possessed of classical literature, being ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... expression, which was also possibly the refrain of some song. Aeschylus means to say that all Euripides' phrases are cast in the same mould, and that his style is so poor and insipid that one can adapt to it any foolery one wishes; as for the phrase he adds to every one of the phrases his rival recites, he chooses it to insinuate that the work of Euripides is labour lost, and that he would have done just as well not to meddle with tragedy. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... to convince myself that it is all real and rational, and not some glimpse of fairyland. This I cannot succeed in doing, and it is better so. I much prefer to believe that all this pomp, and vanity, and show, and mumbo-jumbo foolery has come from fairyland, than to believe it the performance of sane and sensible people who have mastered matter and solved the ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... troubled to think to what party you belong. And I can understand you well enough; I have leanings that way myself. Still, when I get down to Polterham I shall call myself a Radical. What sensible man swears by a party? There's more foolery and dishonesty than enough on both sides, when you come to party quarrelling; but as for the broad principles concerned, why, Radicalism of course means justice. I put it in this way: If I were a poor devil, half starved ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... moment of doubt as to how he should deal with this foolery. If he were quite sure it was just Joyce's nonsense—but perhaps she had gone crazy. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... with thy profane foolery," said Don Rodrigo; "it is not seemly when the life of thy master is at stake. Prepare to give me a full and circumstantial account of this iniquitous business, or by my sword thou shalt severely rue the day thy master first bestrode ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... It is sometimes called we believe La Capital de Majeza; the proper translation of which we conceive to be the Head Quarters of Foolery, for nothing more absurd and contemptible than this Majeza ever came within the sphere of our contemplation. Nevertheless it constitutes the chief glory of the Sevillians. Every Sevillian, male or female, rich or poor, handsome or ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... thinking her the finest child he had ever seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to remove her from a mere nurse, and to think of educating her. I am now anxious for the child's being placed under your protecting wing"; a clumsy, transparent piece of foolery, which at once confirms its intention to mislead! But we are saved the trouble of interpretation, for the father goes on to write on another piece of note-paper, "My beloved, how I feel for your situation and that of our dear Horatia, our dear child." It is almost incredible that Nelson ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... this foolery, You found out what I am when you were a boy. None of this hysterical ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... foolery is a dream! The host was actually sitting there vis-a-vis with the lawyer, at the other end of the long table; for Mistress Boris had so laid the places. And as the magistrate's place remained empty, host ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... should be disturbed in any of its folds; and rather than allow a privileged place to folly beside itself, it has unconsciously assumed the part of the ridiculous; but, alas! a heavy and cheerless ridicule. [Footnote: "Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a greater show."—As You Like It. Act i., sc. 2.] It would be easy to make a collection of the excellent sallies and biting sarcasms which have been preserved of celebrated court fools. It is well known that they frequently ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... believe thee, 'twere some honesty, And for thy penitence would not laugh at thee (As sure they will) and beat thee for thy poverty: If they would allow thy foolery, there were ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... he; "that fellow must be made of steel. They'll go on somewhere; stick about half the night playing poker, or some such foolery." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "God! what foolery is this? The girl's fainting. Never mind. Here, landlady, bring a light! Lead the way. She's not too heavy to carry. Upstairs with you. What a snail you are, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Clarence, dashing aside the obstacles before the door, 'I'm not going to stay here to be treated in this way. If it hadn't been for your foolery in sticking up the notices we should have been friends with the Indians now. I don't want to quarrel with any Bogallala. And you have the cheek to ask me if I'm in a funk, and to want to feel my hands. Well, it just serves ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... give me pointers, and the commercial college was to be a stepping-stone to Paris, I could look my future in the face. The old boy, too, was so pleased at the idea of our association in this foolery, that he immediately plucked up spirit. Thus it befell that those who had met at the depot like a pair of mutes, sat down to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them proclaim what they please; but, in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more work for the armorers ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a delightful book, witty, epigrammatic, flavorsome ... recalls Frank Stockton's bewitching foolery and perennial charm."—Milwaukee ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... 1848.-Yesterday, on returning from Ostia, I find the official news, that the Viceroy Ranieri has capitulated at Verona; that Italy is free, independent, and one. I trust this will prove no April foolery. It seems too good, too speedy ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... "What damned foolery have you been up to NOW?" he demanded. "Can't I move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'tis harder to dispose of than falling stock; and your young lords of manors and commanders of cruisers have stomachs like usurers; no per centage will satisfy them; it must be all, or nothing! There was no such foolery in the days of thy worthy father! The honest trafficker brought his cutter into port, with as innocent a look as a mill-boat. We had our discourses on the qualities of his wares, when here was his price, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... hovering about, a good deal, in Germany and other countries; pretending to be a new light of Heaven, and not a bog-meteor of phosphorated hydrogen, conspicuous in the murk of things. Bog-meteor, foolish putrescent will-o'-wisp, his Majesty promptly defined it to be: Tom-foolery and KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was himself a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the Quixotic type, ventured on defence; and was so respectful, eloquent, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... sheep-herders!" he greeted spitefully, "if yuh think yuh can saw off on your foolery and hold this herd, I'll go and get something to eat. When I come to this outfit t' work, I naturally s'posed yuh was cow-punchers. Yuh ain't. Yuh couldn't hold a bunch uh sick lambs inside a high board corral with the gate shut ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... sake, Dan!" he exclaimed, when, he and the captain were alone, "isn't there EVER going to be any let-up to this tom-foolery? Are these women of ours going ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of the soil and nothing else. If I am Count and Field-Marshal and Viceroy, I owe it all to the good heart of your Empress and mine, whose humble servant I am. Take it away, and let me hear no more of such foolery." ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... so," said her husband, with a strange mixture of satisfaction and anger in his hard tones. "I have been expecting some such foolery as this for some time, and I am not blinded to the motive behind it. What do you care about those devils of Indian savages? What does Horace Spotswood care about them? Just as little! Enough, and too much, of my money has gone already to the prolonging of their worthless ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... disgust. "I'm glad your father didn't live to see you in all the glory of your gracelessness," he said. "Your father was a man, every inch of him. Do you get it? A man. I think he'd have whaled all this musical and artistic tom foolery out of you." ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... straightened, the houses made more substantial. There was a great outcry against the improvements. Old Detroit had been good enough. It was the center of trade, it commanded the highway of commerce. And no one had any money to spend on foolery. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... into the girl?" said Arundel, tired of this foolery. "I prithee no more, sweet Prudence, but conduct me at once to Eveline. Consider how long it is since ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Italians, the Austrians. Why, they can't even shoot! It's just the balance of power and all that foolery keeps this country a roadless wilderness. Good God, how I tire of it! These men who swagger and stink, their brawling dogs, their greasy priests and dervishes, the down-at-heel soldiers, the bribery and robbery, the cheating over ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... Uncle Steve's foolery, and said: "If they're weeping so you'd better take them some of ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... tatterdemalion of the stews, and with him rare Cethegus, a senator in all his bravery! Wise judgment! excellent disguises! I know not whether most to marvel at the insane and furious temerity of this one, or at the idiotic foolery of that! Well fitted are ye both for a great purpose. And now—may the dark furies hunt you to ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... tears. "Enough of this foolery," she said pleadingly. "It is the feast of Dedication, not of Lots. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... you dirty cur," said his mother. "I ran off like a fool when I heerd of your good fortune, and see the condition that baggage left me in—my teeth knocked in and my eye knocked out, and all for your foolery, because you couldn't ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... was up to some foolery. Then I saw littered about his feet the shattered remains of the best of our electrometers. "What's up, man?" said ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... him,—that might be the end of Swan. If not, Warfield could hurry Lorraine away before Swan could act in the matter. A whimsical thought of Swan's telepathic miracle crossed his mind and was dismissed as an unseemly bit of foolery in a matter so grave as Lorraine's safety. And yet—the doctor had received a message that he was wanted at the Quirt, and he had arrived before his patient. There was no getting around that, however impossible it might be. No one could have foreseen Brit's accident; no one save the man ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... this foolery. Out of the question. Find some girl make you a good wife. Your aunt Mary's been meeting some people name of Bassington-Bassington, related Kent Bassington-Bassingtons... eldest daughter charming girl, ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... evening, I tell you, all those heads in the reek of the light, the foolery of those people enjoying life and profiting by peace! It was like a ballet at the theater or the make-believe of a magic lantern. There were—there were—there are a hundred thousand more of them," Volpatte ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... then I saw Mr Perkupp standing half- way in the door, he having arrived without our knowing it. I beckoned to Carrie, and we went up to him at once. He would not come right into the room. I apologised for the foolery, but Mr. Perkupp said: "Oh, it seems amusing." I could see he was not a ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith |
