"Foolish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wrote it to you in the will I made at Baiquiri, the night before the landing. If you hadn't come now, you would have learned it in that way. You would have read there that there never was any one but you; the rest were all dream people, foolish, silly—mad. There is no one else in the world but you; you have been the only thing in life that has counted. I thought I might do something down here that would make you care. But I got shot going up a hill, and after that I wasn't able to do anything. It was very hot, and the hills ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Abuses of Authority, in the late Reigns, Whereby through some Mens Irregular Passions, We have so sadly Smarted; We our selves, should Lapse into the same Errours, We should certainly prove the most Unjust towards God, Foolish towards our Selves, and Ungrate towards Your Majesty, of all Men on earth. Great Revolutions of this nature, must be attended, with Occasions of Complaint: And even the worst of Men, are Ready to cry out of Wrong, for their ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... these idols and monkeys which they adore they say that in former times this land belonged all to the monkeys, and that in those days they could speak. They have books full of fine stories of chivalry, and many foolish tales about their idols, such as it is out of reason for men to believe. But because of this, neither in the kingdom of Bisnaga nor in all the land of the heathen are any monkeys killed, and there are so many in this country that ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... Oh," she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, and holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, "why could you not have left things as they were; why could we not have met in the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy? Why could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? Why didn't you leave me those few days of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, but not the unhappy woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me and talk to me then. You respected my secret, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... their heads into the lion's mouth, and he foresaw the most gloomy consequences from the treaty which had just been concluded. He believed, to use his own language, "that the only difference between Don John and Alva or Requesens was, that he was younger and more foolish than his predecessors, less capable of concealing his venom, more impatient, to dip his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... been proposed. It's good politics to urge it, but it would be foolish to carry it out. People vote against blueskins. Wipe them out, and where'd ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... fear'd the breath of foolish praise, Might taint the lily which so humbly grew; That flattery's sun might shoot delusive rays, Impede her progress, ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... Mr. Montague for more money. He said there was now but one chance of finding coal against nine hundred and ninety nine that he would not find it, and so it would be wrong in him to make the request and foolish in Mr. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... standards and technicalities and systematised facts upon which to base an estimate. The point was raised a quarter of a century ago by Morris in his "News from Nowhere," and indeed it was already discussed by More in his "Utopia." Our contemporary economics is, however, still a foolish, pretentious pseudo-science, a festering mass of assumptions about buying and selling and wages-paying, and one would as soon consult Bradshaw or the works of Dumas as our orthodox professors of economics for any ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the dark aspect of having helped to bring the other about. As the memory of that night recurred to him he became conscious of an obscure, traitorous force lurking within him, betraying him, leading his complacency into foolish and fatal paths, into paths which totally misrepresented him.... He would not really have gone away with ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hope of increasing it by trade, or other fair means, and so benefit yourself and others, is right; but to risk it for nothing, with the certainty of impoverishing some one else if you win, or injuring yourself if you lose, is foolish and unfeeling. The fact that some one else is willing to bet with you, only proves that you have met with one as foolish and unfeeling as yourself, and the agreement of two unfeeling fools does not result in wisdom. You will hear it said, my boy, that a man has a right to do what ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... Napoleon's marriage with Marie Louise and the consequent connection with the imperial family of Austria had been for the former Corsican officer, become Emperor of the French. Since, now, a lady who belonged to one of these great families was disposed to marry him, it would have been foolish to put obstacles in the way; it was necessary to act with despatch; time ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... is cruel to kill them just for sport, as is often done, and very foolish, as we have just seen, to destroy them for the sake of the fruit, which the insects make way with in much greater ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... would indeed be foolish to think that the German Socialists will throw down their rifles on the day when France and Germany come to blows; but it will be very important that the Imperial Government should persuade them that on ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... a year. Few had as yet realized that the struggle was one between mighty nations which only the perseverance of peoples, and not the merits of Ministers, could decide; and the inevitable deferment of foolish hopes would sooner or later have produced a reaction in favour of the retiring Premier and his party. But it would have been accompanied by a revival of party warfare which would have undoubtedly weakened national unity and impaired the prospects of success; and all parties to the Coalition—Liberal, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... clever at all. That was my way, I suppose. I just learned to spell words of two letters, which, of course, was of no use. A fellow can't do much with ba, be, by, and bo, and these are about all the words I remember. I used to think, when we first became chums, how foolish you were to be always reading and studying. Now I see what a pull you have got by it. I expect it is partly because your father was a clever man, and, as most of the people thought, a gentleman, that you came to take to it. Well, if I ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... Anna, runne vnto the water side, They say AEneas men are going abourd, It may be he will steale away with them: Stay not to answere me, runne Anna runne. O foolish Troians that would steale from hence, And not let Dido vnderstand their drift: I would haue giuen Achates store of gold, And Illioneus gum and Libian spice, The common souldiers rich imbrodered coates, And siluer whistles to controule the windes, ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... young man," said Mrs. Fabens, "if the Cressey girls, and Desdemona Faddle do feel above him. They will set their caps in vain for Merchant Fairbanks, for he detests their foolish pride and finery as much as any one, and laughs in his sleeves, I'll warrant, at their dangling curls, and their silly lisping talk, when they try to speak polite to him; although he likes to flirt with them, and make them think he is ready to ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... thy forward, noisy tongue Proclaim'd thee always in the wrong, Thou might'st have mingled with the rest, And ne'er thy foolish sense confess'd; But fools, to talking ever prone, Are sure to make their ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in prophesying, have no leisure to look backwards! It is we that have despised life and beauty and God; it is we that make graven images, and worship the fire till we cannot see the sun, who pray daily for peace, and cast the jewel in the mire when it is put in our foolish hands. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... assurance, and, with them, the sweetness, of this young girl were charming and perplexing to Sir Basil. Girls so assured he had found harsh, disagreeable and, almost always, ugly; they had been the sort of girl one avoided. And girls so lovely had usually been coy and foolish. This girl walked like a queen, looked at one like a philosopher, smiled at one like an angel. He fixed his mind on her last words, rallying his sense of quizzical paternity to meet ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... heard, then answered. Perhaps the motion was too sudden; and human nature starts at murder, though strong necessity compels it. I have thought long of this; and my first feelings were like yours; a foolish conscience awed me, which soon I conquered. The man that would undo me, nature cries out, undo. Brutes know their foes by instinct; and where superior force is given, they use it for destruction. Shall man do less? Lewson pursues us to our ruin; and shall ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... of the young Herakles. As his father had been slain in battle, the mother had brought him up in the wilderness a stranger to arms—foolish deed—mad woman! Parsifal relates that he had followed "glittering men" and after the manner of the vigorous primitive peoples, had led the wild life of nature, following only natural instincts. Gurnemanz reproaches him for ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... to L5 a-head worth of our manufactures, the foreign nations to whom we are willing to sacrifice the British agriculturists, take off per head ONLY AS MANY PENCE. In preferring the one to the other, therefore, we are, literally speaking, penny wise and pound foolish. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... her good-night. I have a yet clearer memory (like a dream of fifty years ago) of a little bare-legged girl in a sailor's jersey, who used to run up into my lodgings by the sea. But why should I trouble you with foolish reminiscences of mine ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... is evident that you have been overworking and are growing foolish. I make excuses for you, since anybody who passed first out of Sandhurst must have overworked, but it does not alter the fact. Now I must go home and see about that house, for as yet I have arranged nothing at all, and the place is in an awful state. Remember that my father ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... at Chakdara, and so times without number, it is the gallant British subaltern, in spite of silly chatter, who again and again has shown the highest attributes of an officer and a soldier. It is the foolish custom of a certain class of Englishman to decry all that is their own; and amongst the latest of these victims of a dyspeptic imagination is the British officer. Men call him stupid, who would themselves have no chance of passing the intellectual test which every young officer has to go through. ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... which people from age to age choose to bestow on their feeding intervals. Some call supper dinner, and others call dinner luncheon. First comes the prevailing mode instituted by fashionable society, and then a foolish subscription to it by a section of the community who are too poor to follow it, and too proud not to seem to do so. Formerly it was usual for the Great to dine and sup earlier than the Little; but now the rule is reversed, and the ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum[Lat], evasive; irrelevant &c. 10. weak, feeble, poor, flimsy, loose, vague. irrational; nonsensical &c. (absurd) 497. foolish &c. (imbecile) 499; frivolous, pettifogging, quibbling; finespun[obs3], overrefined[obs3]. at the end of one's tether, au bout de son latin. Adv. intuitively &c. adj.; by intuition; illogically &c. adj. Phr. non ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... first Mandarin, said to him: "Son of Heaven, you make a mistake." To which the Emperor replied: "Kouang, you are foolish." ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... George," he said, reproachfully, "you great big foolish boy, or you no laugh like dat all. You done ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... indeed, cause to thank God both for her preservation and for the good that this seems to have wrought in her. She had been a spoilt child, and, being well-favoured, her head had been turned by flattery, and she indulged in all sorts of foolish dreams. Now she is truly penitent for her folly. Had you not arrived, my Lord, I should, when we had finished our supper, have told Master Shenstone that I knew of this vast service he has rendered us—a service to which the other ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... you should be seen at the Ritz alone with Lord Donald. I therefore have her authority with me in asking you either to write or telegraph to him again to-night, giving up the plan. Better still if you would depute me to do it. It is really a very foolish plan—if ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... or under the shrouding boughs of the wood, there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish—perhaps a young blooming girl, not knowing where to turn for refuge from swift-advancing shame, understanding no more of this life of ours than a foolish lost lamb wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on the lonely heath, yet tasting the bitterest ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... prudent of men, learn further that a thruppenny bit, which to the foolish will often seem a mere expenditure of threepence, to the wise may represent a saving of that sum. For how many occasions are there not in which the inconsequent and lavish fool, the spendthrift, the young ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... Watts, a rich gentleman-commoner, who had also met her at Oxford. Surely with such and other rivals, the chances of the quiet, unpretending, undemonstrative boy of nineteen were small. But no, Miss Linley was foolish enough to be captivated by genius, and charmed by such poems as the quiet boy wrote to her, of which this is, perhaps, one ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... thinke she meanes to tangle my eies too: No faith proud Mistresse, hope not after it, 'Tis not your inkie browes, your blacke silke haire, Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheeke of creame That can entame my spirits to your worship: You foolish Shepheard, wherefore do you follow her Like foggy South, puffing with winde and raine, You are a thousand times a properer man Then she a woman. 'Tis such fooles as you That makes the world full of ill-fauourd children: 'Tis not her glasse, but you that flatters her, And out of you she sees her ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... fellow, don't go mad with your foolish fears. Pray for yourself and us, if you please, for it is a terrible night, and we may well stand in need of prayer; but do your duty like a man. Stand in your place until I summon you, and then come, if a score of ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... little dream of your youth,—that you once met a pretty American girl who was foolish enough to refuse all that you ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... me, no! It's only that I have a very foolish and very stupid prejudice against Irishmen—as I ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... him. They take great pains in endeavoring to understand the construction of the world, and whether or not it will perish, and at what time. They believe that the true oracle of Jesus Christ is by the signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, which signs do not thus appear to many of us foolish ones. Therefore they wait for the renewing of the age, and ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... Anthony earnestly. "You know, she's pretty mad about you, but as long as you're not interested the way I am, well——" He bit his lip nervously, and went on: "I think you'd agree with me that it would be rather foolish of her, and very disappointing and disillusioning later on for her to marry the kind of a man she thinks she wants to marry. She has a notion that the man she marries must be a cross between Adonis, and—and Diamond Dick! She wants a man who carries six-shooters in all his pockets, and ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... great feather in his cap. Oh, I don't say young Murchison isn't a rising fellow, but it's foolishness for his party—I can't think who is responsible for it. However, they've got a pretty foolish platform just now—they couldn't win this seat on it with any man. A lesson will be ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... restless, had become exasperated beyond all power of a return to sleep. Concerns of youth and love kept them murmuring, murmuring in the acute if distant ears of one whom youth had left and for whom love was impossible. Beyond his foolish, figured wall were two contrasted types of young vigor, and they babbled, babbled on, in the sensitized hearing of one from whom vigor was gone and for whom hope ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... Then there can never be an explanation. What avails it that another loves you, if he does not understand you? Such love is a curse. What sort of companions are they who are presuming always that their silence is more expressive than yours? How foolish, and inconsiderate, and unjust, to conduct as if you were the only party aggrieved! Has not your Friend always equal ground of complaint? No doubt my Friends sometimes speak to me in vain, but they do not know what ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... equal for cleverness in Thrums, man or woman, an' yet she's fair skeered about thae cloaks. Aince a woman sets her mind on something to wear, she's mair onreasonable than the stupidest man. Ay, it micht mak them humble to see hoo foolish they are syne. No, ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... "But if so, it was because I was foolish enough to let it be dark. And you yourself must never do it again. If things get bad at night you must wait until morning and then come out here. So, if you remember what I have said, it will get light again. Will you promise to ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... wish you not to have unfavourable impressions as regard our concern with such matters. We have a canon declaratory on vestments, asserting the ordinary surplice, gown, hood, and stole. It is stupidly worded, but the meaning is obvious. I was vexed from your experience to hear of such foolish proceedings at Bridge of Allan, contrary to canon and to common sense.... The green part of the dress which caused your wonder, naturally enough, is not a freak of new vestments, but is a foolish ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... and arbitration treaties made with a view to its use in all international controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war. But we should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves to become foolish idealists if we did not realize that, with all the nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves in a similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from taking advantage of us and of our inability to defend our ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... that for a kiss he looked to receive a box on the ear. The thought of possessing her was almost disquieting. At times he believed that she was just playing with him and his position appeared simply foolish and absurd. But to-day, after this promise, uttered hesitatingly, in faltering tones such as he had heard other women use, he felt suddenly certain of his power and that victory was near. He knew that things would be just as he had desired them to be. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... assure me of kind success: Go, valiant soldier, go before, and charge The fainting army of that foolish king. ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met Ona, at a horse fair a hundred miles from home. Jurgis had never expected to get married—he had laughed at it as a foolish trap for a man to walk into; but here, without ever having spoken a word to her, with no more than the exchange of half a dozen smiles, he found himself, purple in the face with embarrassment and terror, asking her ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... to escape, eh?" he said. "Well, we don't think you will. If you intended to escape you would not be so foolish as to tell us about it; and then, if you did attempt it, you could not get out of Cologne with an English face like yours. That's alright," he repeated, "you will report this ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... to him—sweet, frank, intelligent, sympathetic—they had been his founts of refreshing, his manna by the way. Until that fatal night, when Melrose had crushed in him all that foolish optimism and self-conceit with which he had entered into the original bargain! Since then, he knew well that his letters had chilled and disappointed her; they had been ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... about our troubles to those persons who can give us direct help, but even in this case we ought as much as possible to come to a provisional conclusion before consultation; to be perfectly clear to ourselves within our own limits. Some people have a foolish trick of applying for aid before they have done anything whatever to aid themselves, and in fact try to talk themselves into perspicuity. The only way in which they can think is by talking, and their speech consequently ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... guilt. Their confession was received at first with promotion and favours, and soon visited with punishment, thus bequeathing a signal lesson against being too confiding. I should judge that men, whose foolish blabbing brought them to destruction, when wholesome silence could have ensured their safety, well deserved to atone upon the gallows for their ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... was of a singularly patient disposition in dealing with all ordinary affairs of life. We know how, whenever a hitch occurs in a railway journey, a great number of passengers become irritated, almost to a kind of foolish frenzy. He always took these matters most patiently. He well knew that no persons are so anxious to avoid such detentions as the officials themselves, and never allowed himself to altercate with a helpless guard ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... thou art like unto our father, led away by the foolish imaginations of his heart; yea, he hath led us out of the land of Jerusalem, and we have wandered in the wilderness for these many years; and our women have toiled, being big with child; and they have borne ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... enemies, her stooping form, her hanging arms, and all her disentangled hair as toils designed to entrap man's heart. Then how much more should you suspect her studied, amorous beauty! when she displays her dainty outline, her richly ornamented form, and chatters gaily with the foolish man! Ah, then! what perturbation and what evil thoughts, not seeing underneath the sorrows of impermanence, the impurity, the unreality! Considering these as the ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... been sitting amidships, moved toward his friends, and the three spent an hour talking of what was now termed by all "a foolish venture." ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... forenoon, and he having bought some things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them) dined with me, and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and being so complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I detest myself for being so foolish! ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... So our less distinguished but equally sensitive hero had always the impression that his long wrists and ankles were subjects of ridicule. He believed the ladies did not fancy him; he therefore made no efforts to propitiate their favor. If they happened to laugh in his presence—and the foolish things are always happening to laugh—he made sure it was at himself; and he shot at them most vengeful flashes from his cavernous orbs, which annihilated them not at all, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... for his sin than 'I was afraid,' each makes the other blacker. Israel had cast off the fear of the Lord, which would have preserved it from the ignoble terror of men, and the consequence was that it trembled before an angry, unscrupulous woman. It had revolted from Rehoboam and his foolish bluster about whips and scorpions, and the consequence was a worse slavery. If we fear God, we need have no other fear. The sun puts out a fire. If we rebel against Him, we do not become free, but fall under a heavy yoke. It is never prudent to do wrong. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... led, among other causes, to the minister's overthrow many years later. Between three and four thousand officers and men, including Admiral Hosier himself, died there. Walpole's aim, however, was reached; though Spain made a foolish attack by land upon Gibraltar, the presence of the English fleet assured its supplies and provisions and averted the formal outbreak of war. The emperor withdrew from the alliance, and under English pressure also revoked the charter of an East India company which he had authorized ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... towards middle age, he grew more domineering in tone, more noble in his dreams, and more foolish in much of his conduct. He was soon to shine in each of these three lights. He returned from America in a fury. For two years he had been busy in Pennsylvania in a brave, but not very successful, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... take me as bail for such an amount," I said to Medini, "and even if he would I should never be so foolish as ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... you foolish one," she persisted, her curiosity fully aroused. "I must and will know about it now;" and she stamped her little foot with an air of command, which, toward her favorite, was ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... skilful. ingrat, ungrateful. injure, f., wrong, insult, injury. innocent, innocent, pure. innombrable, innumerable. inou, unheard of. inqui-et, -te, anxious. inquiter, to make anxious. inquitude, f., anxiety. insens, senseless, foolish. insipide, insipid, tasteless; devenir —, to pall upon. insolent, m., insolent man. inspirer, to inspire. instrument, m., instrument, means, musical instrument, insulter, to insult; — , to mock. interdit, confused, perplexed. intress, self-seeking. intresser, to cause to be interested. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... law both in its spirit and its letter is obstinate and incorrigible, what we cannot bend to our purpose we must break—"Our sins we hope are of the smaller order; a little harmless gallantry, a little innocent jollity, a few foolish expletives which we use from the mere force of habit, meaning nothing by them; a little warmth of colouring and licence of expression; a few freedoms of speech in the gaiety of our hearts, which, though not perhaps strictly correct, none but the over-rigid would think of treating ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... know that no individual will suffer by my thirty years' service to the public. If things should give us the comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall be found, I was going to say fighting, (that would be foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances in such a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... always endeavour to hide our own—and which do you mean to hide, or do you intend to come out perfect? I daresay you can discover some little habits of your own, Eusebius, free from vanity as you are, that tend to these little concealments! Do you remember how a foolish man lost a considerable sum of money once, by forgetting this human propensity? He had lost some money to little K—— of Bath, the deformed gambler—and being netted at his loss, thought to pique the winner. "I'll wager," said he, "L50, I'll point out the worst leg in company."—"Done," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... confused with the Manson Chiverses of University Place), but could also enumerate the leading characteristics of each family: as, for instance, the fabulous stinginess of the younger lines of Leffertses (the Long Island ones); or the fatal tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish matches; or the insanity recurring in every second generation of the Albany Chiverses, with whom their New York cousins had always refused to intermarry—with the disastrous exception of poor Medora Manson, who, as everybody knew ... but then her ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... strange land; whence are we to get food here? No harvest will grow on these bare rocks, no meadows are spread out before our eyes. The whole land is bare and desolate." But the son of Zeus smiled and said, "O foolish men, and easy to be cast down, if ye had your wish ye would gain nothing but care and toil. But listen to me and ponder well my words. Stretch forth your hands and slay each day the rich offerings, for they shall ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... it may be, but quite as good, we think, in matter, as many a saw and dogma that have been flung at our foolish ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... she could have accepted "as a little child." But everywhere, in her own opinion, she stood for Justice; justice for women as against the old primaeval tyranny of men; justice, of course, to the workman, and justice to the rich. No foolish Socialism, and no encroaching Trusts! A lucid common sense, so it seemed to her, ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... together, and worse yet, being married in Albion village right at our very doors; I don't hardly dare to go to bed nights for fear of hearing in the morning that some of the other young folks have been led astray by this foolish performance of Hetty's; I know it was Hetty's fault; Nathan never had ingenuity enough to think and ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said, "we won't just bother about anything for the rest of the day. We'll be cheerful and jolly and foolish, like we were on Friday. God knows how all this infernal tangle is going to pan out, but we may as well snatch one evening's happiness out of it while we've ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... own perfectly selfish way. She was just as willing to bear his troubles, and plan for their relief, and deny herself for his pleasure, as Roland was willing to accept the sacrifice. Of course she was foolish, perhaps sinfully foolish, and it is no excuse for her folly to admit that there are thousands of ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... beautiful face. To-morrow he would send the letter. To-morrow? Why, yes, to-day, like all to-days in the removed and placid light of all to-morrows, would be shown needlessly hectic. Ten to one something would have happened in the night to make to-day look foolish. If nothing had happened, if it still was war, it could only be a swiftly over business, a rapid and general recognition of the impossibility ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... just in the mood to make a good shot. The fox stops just out of range and listens for the hound. He looks as bright as an autumn leaf upon the spotless surface. Then he starts on, but he is not coming to me, he is going to the other man. Oh, foolish fox, you are going straight into the jaws of death! My comrade stands just there beside that tree. I would gladly have given Reynard the wink, or signaled to him, if I could. It did seem a pity to shoot him, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... baby owl looked like a very young and foolish monkey as it sat in Jud's hands and rolled its ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... toads, and frogs, and chuckling birds who seem to think we must be foolish to come right out here into no-man's-land, sir. That's about all. How ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... He has been mapping the whole field of operation here, as you know—details of the forts, and the location of all the concealed gun mountings and platforms we have put in in case the Belgians should be foolish enough to try to ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... "Foolish child!" said her mother, beginning to relent, as she usually did on such occasions, "I don't wish you to be uncivil to her; but I should like you to be more with Kate Howard, and Anne de Vaux;" and the conversation ended, as several others of the same description had done, by leaving things precisely ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the title of 'Airy's Popular Astronomy.'—It had been found necessary to include under one body all the unconnected Commissions of Sewers for the Metropolis, and Lord Morpeth requested me to be a member. Its operations began on Oct. 28th. In constitution it was the most foolish that I ever knew: consisting of, I think, some 200 persons, who could not possibly attend to it. It came to an end ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... would please the sportive fancy now so strong in him. After recrossing the river he saw on his left an opening of considerable size, and he heard grunts and groans coming from it. He knew that a buffalo troop was resting there. The foolish beasts had wandered into the Indian vicinity, but they would learn the proximity of the warriors the next day and wander away. Meanwhile Henry needed them and would use them. Now and then he reverted to the religious imagery which he had learned when he was with Red Cloud and his ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... famous Donkey who, when placed between two bundles of hay, starved to death because he was unable to decide in favour of either by breaking the equilibrium between two equal but opposite attractions. They slandered the worthy animal. The Ass, who is no more foolish than any one else, would reply to the logical snare by feasting off both bundles. Will my caterpillars show a little of his mother wit? Will they, after many attempts, be able to break the equilibrium of their closed circuit, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... room, eager to burn my moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was, however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... in Germany no Jacob Stainer, and in England no future Banks or Forster. Why so? The answer is twofold. Partly there is fault in the demand, arising from the marked preference of this age for cheapness at the expense of goodness; partly, too, there is a fault in the supply, a foolish desire on the part of the makers to give maturity to their instruments, wherein they always completely fail, yet they will not give up their conceit. Here, again, were we dealing with matters of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... charge me with ambition, and glorious vices; let me be the evil genius of the commonwealth, the tinsel villain of the political melodrama; but don't threaten me with the fool's cap, or write me down with Dogberry; above all, don't quote me in cold blood, that the foolish people may see, after the fever heat has subsided, what trash I have palmed upon them in the name of liberty!' Yet this is the way, Jonathan, to deal with demagogues. You make too much of yours, man. You are not the blockhead we take you for after all; but you delight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... had dictated his previous answer sprang from the thought that the foolish females downstairs could not contradict it, and he adhered calmly to the course now he was ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... with that sudden force which before had startled her. "Because I can't stand by and see purity joined to corruption. Some women will sacrifice anything for sentiment. You wouldn't do anything so damn' foolish as that." ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... ex-milliner and her husband, though these two had retired to their cabin, whence I could not get them to stir, either by threat of being left behind or any entreaty. No, they were both as obstinate as mules in their cowardice and foolish fears! ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... colonel. You and I are the reasonable members of this family. We should be very foolish if we let ourselves by martyrized by that pair of lovers, who live on poetry! Give me your arm! Don't you think I'm improving? I lean on people's arms, wear fashionable hats and gowns and trinkets—I'm learning I don't know how many fine things—I'm ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... was fumbling with the gravel in the hopper. He was conscious that his replies were foolish and trivial, but for the life of him he ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... blood flamed as he thought of their manoeuvrings, and putting his hand to his holster, where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... then can be more sad than the man who has felt in the depths of his soul the thrill of that opening light, and the further that he journeys, finds more and more weary persons who tell him insistently that it was nothing but a foolish incident of youth, a trick of fancy, a passing mood, and that life must be given to harder and more sordid things? It is well for him if he can resist these ugly voices; if he can continue to discern what there ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... amazement of the Spartans. Again he gained the victory, and a truce was made, but he was treacherously seized, and thrown into prison. However, this time he was set free by a maiden, whom he gave in marriage to his son. At last Eira, the chief city of Messenia, was betrayed by a foolish woman, while Aristomenes was laid aside by a wound. In spite of this, however, he fought for three days and nights against the Spartans, and at last drew up all the survivors—women as well as men—in ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but a foolish, quixotic undertaking after all," he told himself, when his negotiations were completed, "but I must have some excuse for remaining here. That girl is the most beautiful being I ever met. She has power to move me as I was never moved before. I simply cannot go away and leave her. I am sure her ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... read the papers like other people, and we know now what business took you to Eastwich. But it's foolish of you to hang about the neighbourhood where you might ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... "for, in the first place, I've a foolish partiality for poachers, and am sorry when any of 'em come to hurt; and, in the second, I'd be mighty displeased if any ill had happened to one of Sir Piers's flesh and blood, as this young ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... gallows than sitting at his own table, would act most foolishly, if he did not hang himself. So any one who clearly saw that, by committing crimes, he would enjoy a really more perfect and better life and existence, than he could attain by the practice of virtue, would be foolish if he did not act on his convictions. For, with such a perverse human nature as his, crime would become virtue. From a letter to Wm. ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... thing lasts," commented our hero to a friend, "I am afraid I shall do some foolish thing, for if I know myself there is no want of what is called courage in my nature, and I can only hope I shall not be led ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... that they were to give you the preference?-That was not at all stated. They simply gave us the preference, because they had a notion-a very foolish notion-that we might have acted in the same way as other parties would probably have acted if they had not done so: that was, by giving them a warning and turning ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... took a quiet interest in all her charity cases. They would often talk them over at night, and in his easy careless way he would turn over all his spare money to help in the work. Eleanore would protest at times, and tell him how utterly foolish he was in not putting money aside for himself. But soon, deep in another case of poignant human misery, she would throw all caution to the winds and use her father's money—every dollar he could spare. That was another ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... memories. The coating of those walls had been formed of the vapours of the soul, of the exhalations of accumulated desires and regrets, even more than of the smoke of tapers; how foolish it was then to have painted this crypt in squalid imitation of the catacombs, to have defaced the glorious darkness of these stones with colours which were indeed fast vanishing, leaving only traces as of palette scrapings in the consecrated soot on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in the carriage she could not help thinking that she was one of the dullest creatures on earth. How could she be so foolish as to imagine that any one in the house cared whether she were there or not? More probably she was only in the way. She could not help regretting her defective education, and a few days after, when she returned to Sandsgaard, she noticed that her uncle did not pat ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do anything wrong or foolish? You know the falsehood of that ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... Angus always laughed at my dreams, but I have a strange feeling whenever I think of this. Oh, Elspie, you can't tell how sweet it was! And so I should like to call my baby Olive, for the sake of the beautiful angel. It may be foolish—but 'tis a fancy of mine. Olive Rothesay! It sounds well, and Olive Rothesay ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... cannot maintain that Jaggard behaved well. On the other hand, it were foolish to judge his offence as if the man had committed it the day before yesterday. Conscience in matters of literary copyright has been a plant of slow growth. But a year or two ago respectable citizens of the United ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and easygoing, began to get much exercised over these attentions of the police. The Patel, a foolish and dissipated young man, found his liberty seriously curtailed by having frequently to attend the City Police Court to report progress. The village Mahars, or low-caste men, are liable to be called upon amongst their other duties to serve as village constables. These men were ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... you go trying to make a hero out of me," said Walter, hotly, "I won't have it. I only did what anyone would have done, and I made a whole lot of foolish ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... But it could be that Travail knew of the value of Sutter's shell collection. Yesterday a letter had come from the Federal Arts Museum offering five thousand credits for the lot, and while he had made no mention of the amount, Sutter had been foolish enough to tell Travail there had been ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... across him that this life of his, after all, had not been either good, or glad, or sane, but foolish, perverted and base. Sarudine, the handsome Sarudine, entitled to all that was best and most enjoyable in life, no longer existed. There was only a feeble, emasculated body left to bear all this pain ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... been over then, as all was over with Rogers and Gratian! This foolish expedition would thus have come to a conclusion worthy ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... grandmamma nearly made him spoil his hat, he fidgeted with it so, and he hardly dared to ask for more than one subscription—she is so beautifully polite, and she often is laughing in her sleeve. She says so few people can see the comic side of things and that it is a great gift and chases away foolish migraines. I think she has a grand scheme in her head for me, and that is what we are ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... I let her go on the stage, I knew something dreadful would happen to her," she wailed. "Of course Mr. Dix is foolish and eccentric, but I never thought he ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... next week Mrs. Thayer came, in great tribulation, to know how I ever could have done so foolish and useless a thing as report that case to Miss Dix! Oh dear! Oh ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... such proceedings as took place twelve years afterwards. She still continued to brave public sentiment, lived on in the same free and easy style, paying no regard to the scowls of the sanctimonious or the foolish tittle-tattle of the superstitious. She kept her house of entertainment, shovel-board, and other appurtenances. Sometimes, however, she resented the calumnies circulated about her being a witch, in a manner that made it to be felt that it was best to let ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... answered. "Bertie has deceived you, but it may be for some foolish scheme of his own. He may be guiltless of this: it is only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... "It is not foolish. It is very useful for me to learn to climb." So saying he went on scrambling up the railing of the bannisters ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... test not so much one's progress as a greater and more perfect habit of virtue. Bion maintained that his friends might think they had made progress, when they could listen as patiently to abuse as to such language as the following, "Stranger, you look not like a bad or foolish person,"[283] "Health and joy go with you, may the gods give you happiness!"[284] While as to Pyrrho they say, when he was at sea and in peril from a storm, that he pointed out a little pig that was quietly enjoying some grain that ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... "And that's another foolish thing!" exclaimed Aunt Dora. "To allow two girls to reach their age and have nobody able to distinguish between them. Dressing them just alike, and all! It ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... for the answering rimes, Arnaut used light assonances which almost amount to rime in some cases. The Monk of Montaudon in his satirical sirventes says of Arnaut: "He has sung nothing all his life, except a few foolish verses which no one understands"; and we may reasonably suppose that Arnaut's poetry was as obscure to many of his contemporaries as it ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... But it will not last long, and when the day of their triumph is over, they will have to pay dearly for it. They will destroy the temples and raze them to the ground, flooding the earth with blood. But the foolish children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of mutiny for any length of time. Suffused with idiotic tears, they will confess that He who created them rebellious undoubtedly did so but to mock them. They ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... the use of opium is no wiser, and just as futile, in China, as King Jamie's foolish decrees against tobacco proved to ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... of "The Powerful Crayfish and the Insatiable Wife" is almost identical with that of Grimm. At last the woman wishes to be God, and the crayfish sends the foolish couple ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... pilgrims draw ever nearer to God, obtaining joy and gladness in all the march, until at last 'sorrow and sighing shall flee away.' But instead of this he had made for himself a crooked path, and had lost his road and his peace in the mazes of wandering ways. 'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... so foolish. They are not only not insisting upon her telling her secret, but announced to me their determination not to do so in the future. I wish you could have seen that man's face when he told me what a delicate, nervous little thing his child was, and the doctor said she must not be fretted if she ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... losing my glory, I fell down from that excellent car and while falling, I beheld myself turned into a snake, with head downwards. I thus implored that Brahmana, "May this curse be extinguished, O adorable one! You ought to forgive one who has been so foolish from infatuation." Then he kindly told me this, as I was being hurled down (from heaven), "The virtuous king Yudhishthira will save thee from this curse, and when, O king, horrible sin of pride will be extinguished in thee, thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Edward— or whatever be his name—either leave us at this present moment, or do at any time hereafter regulate himself by any commands save our own, or those of our Follower, Achilles Tatius. And now, allowing this foolish affair, which I think was blown among us by the wind, to pass as it came, without farther notice, we crave to know the grave matters of state which brought you to our presence at so late an hour.—You look again at this Varangian.—Withhold ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott |
