"Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Every young fellow who has ever done or been anything in the world, has at some time in his life had such thoughts. Sad will it be for England as a nation when our boys do not dream impossible dreams, and think thoughts which wiseacres call foolishness. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... him in the North Sea,' the mate answered, 'and all the arguing in the world won't convince them of their foolishness. After a time you will not find his ignorance and superstition amusing. However, what I want to say to you is this: the men in the foc's'le declare that the grub isn't well cooked, and that you haven't given them plum duff yet. You must let ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the offer she had had, and Phillis quite agreed with her, in thinking Robert was crazy. She charged "Esther to know when she was well off, and not to bring trouble upon herself by getting married, or any such foolishness as that." ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... France, or anything about returning, and I entreat you answer me truly, and let no false modesty, or little missish delicacy, prevent your doing so. Many a life has been rendered miserable by such foolishness, I have heard say; and being, as it were, almost alone in the world, as if an only brother with an only sister, to whom, if not to one another, should we ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... remember, is the German High Admiral as history will know him, when the futility of his crimes is proved, their evil put out of memory, and only their foolishness remains! ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... disturbing intensity of expression reigning over inanimate nature, contrasts with the almost absolute blank of the human countenance, with the smiling foolishness of the simple little folk who meet one's gaze, as they patiently carry on their minute trades in the gloom of their tiny open-fronted houses. Workmen squatted on their heels, carving with their imperceptible tools the droll or odiously obscene ivory ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... opinion was unknown to me. I had no doubt that it would differ entirely from my own, since his came down from an unknown sphere towards which I was striving to raise myself; convinced that my thoughts would have seemed pure foolishness to that perfected spirit, I had so completely obliterated them all that, if I happened to find in one of his books something which had already occurred to my own mind, my heart would swell with gratitude and pride as though ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... seemed to realize the iniquities of the case more and more plainly; and as the letter grew her wrath grew also. The whole came, in the end, to a threat—made in good earnest—to take a very serious step indeed if any more "foolishness" developed. ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... in Brannigan's last night, buying peppermint drops and every kind of foolishness, the same as she might be a little girleen that was given a penny and her just out ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... I decided it was up to me to stop this pharisaical foolishness, I took a new view of things; decided I wasn't so much, after all; ceased reprobating my friends who wanted to drink; had no advice to offer, and stopped pointing to myself as a heroic young person who had accomplished a ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... foolishness that made you do it. Josiah!" she called, as the Captain came down by the rear stair. "Get me a basin of water and ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... idea of it all?" inquired Myra. "It seems foolishness to me, but perhaps it flatters your vanity to be able to go about ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... write of a love perverted by all the elements contributing to foolishness, and foredoomed to chastisement, would be a graceless business. Janet and I went through our trial, she, you may believe, the braver under the most ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... died of sorrow! Tonto is indeed a very careless beast. It would seem as if the padrecito's blessing might have put more sense into him. It must be the will of God that there should be a great deal of foolishness in the world, but without doubt donkeys and goats ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... don't, lessen yo' want me to tickle yore back with the bud again. I don't allow to put up with no foolishness." He turned in explanation to the boy. "Brad Nickson seen him this side of the river to-day. He says this ain't the fustest time Roush has been seen hangin' ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... divorce-court proceedings. Inside this line she frankly insisted on latitude, and Tynemouth gave it to her without thought or anxiety. He was too fond of outdoor life, of racing and hunting and shooting and polo and travel, to have his eye unnerved by any such foolishness ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a great many more will go the same way. You just listen to me. I don't wear any uniform, but I've got eyes to see and ears to hear. I suppose that more monumental foolishness has been hidden under cocked hats and gold lace than under anything else, since the world began. Easy now, I don't say that fools are not more numerous outside armies than in them—there are more people outside—but the mistakes of ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is the danger. Every Jack should have his Jill; but if every Jill has her job, why, there again the wedding day goes receding some more into the future. Let them stop all this foolishness and get married, as ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... pleasure at meeting, in ready acknowledgments, in a half willing, half unwilling, and yet irresistible attraction; and all this was mutual. Their long separation gave occasion for longer conversations; even their old childish foolishness served, now that they had grown wiser, to amuse them as they looked back; and they felt as if at least they were bound to make good their petulant hatred by friendliness and attention to each other—as if their first violent injustice ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... I have peculiarly pleasant recollections. It was not a cottage, but had evidently been put up as a public resort; especially, as I inferred, for Sunday-school or parish picnics. It was furnished with a platform for speech-making (is there any foolishness that men will not commit on sea beaches and mountain tops?), and, what was more to my purpose, was open on three sides. I passed a good deal of time there, first and last, and once it sheltered me from a drenching shower of an hour or two. The lightning was vivid, and the rain fell ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... will be the awful judgment for the multitudes, the ever increasing multitudes who reject the Cross of Christ, who are either opposing it by their ethical gospel, to whom the preaching of the cross is foolishness, or who are indifferent? The Holy Spirit has told us that where the Gospel, the Cross of Christ is rejected or perverted the Anathema, the curse of God must follow (Gal. i:9; 1 Corinth. xvi:22). Well has one said "Distance from God was the climax of ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... about Greece and Turkey's war. Do you think there is any chance of Greece winning if the Powers stop their foolishness? ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and Rowland's children had all had the disease, but had recovered. As for any idea about taking infection from men coming out of places where that infection existed, that would have been the merest foolishness; at least, Paul and Rowland thought so, and as they were destined to be my close companions for some days, cooking for me, tying up my blankets, and sleeping beside me, it was just as well to put a good face upon the matter and trust once more to the glorious doctrine ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Christianity; whether we consider the sort of Messiah the Jews expected, or the hatred of all Jewish Messiahs, which the Gentiles could not but have felt. The Christ offered them so far from being welcome, was to the one a 'stumbling block' and to the other 'foolishness'; and yet he conquered the ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... as he said this, and I began to feel that perhaps the old stories were foolishness. All my father had told me seemed real in the night time, but in daylight it was ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... easily adjusted himself to the situation and promptly knelt in the straw, and with his face in his hands peeped between his fingers at the Evangelist. Jim Peabody, the infidel, sat arrogantly erect with an impish snarl on his lip. To him the whole business of praying was a huge piece of foolishness—except, of course, when under the wagon-box. Aunt Sally Perkins knelt beside the front bench and clapped her hands hysterically during the prayer. And Deacon Gramps had slipped under the outer edge of the arbor, where he sat on a low bench with his elbows ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... came to the river the lower dropped her spirits, for as yet no sign of the animals was to be seen. To have attempted to place a hackamore upon any of the wild creatures in the corral would have been the height of foolishness—only a well-sped riata in the hands of a strong man could have ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... than the works, of darkness. Her sisters, the elder churches, she loves and respects as she would be herself loved and respected; but she will not, and may not, worship them, nor even, for their sakes, believe error to be truth, or foolishness to be wisdom. She dare not hope that she can be in all things a perfect guide and example to the churches that shall come after her; as neither have the churches before her been in all things a perfect guide ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... still, with the tears rolling down his face. You know the way a child's breath catches, Hodder? He was always laughing. And how he used to cling to me, and beg me to take him out, and show such an interest in everything! He was a bright boy, a remarkable child, I thought, but I suppose it was my foolishness. He analyzed all he saw, and when he used to go off in my car, Brennan, the engineer, would always beg to have him in the cab. And such sympathy! He knew in an instant when I was worried. I had dreams of what that boy would become, but I was too sure of it. I went on doing other things—there ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of an unsuitable appendix. There was no animus in the matter. Her mind was suffering from foolish ideas, and he was the surgeon whose task it was to operate upon it. That was all. One had to expect foolishness in women. It was their nature. The only thing to do was to tie a rope to them and let them run around till they were tired of it, then pull them in. He saw his way ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'em licked, anyway. Let up on the street railway: I notice you're taking a fall out of them on their overcrowding. Treat the theaters decently: they're entitled to a fair chance for their money. Cut out this Consumers' League foolishness (I'm surprised at Milly Neal—the way she's lost her head over that). Make friends instead of foes. And go after Elias M. Pierce, to the finish. Do this, and I'll back you with the whole Certina income. Come on, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... do this foolishness," she pleaded softly; "it is not worth it! See, I have given my word! If you had thought I would go ahead of you to M'tela, all that danger is past. A fresh start, you said it yourself. Do you think I would ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... judges taking part against her. Jeanne herself suspected no falsehood, but made her confession to him, when she found that he was a priest, and trusted him fully. The bewildering and confusing fact, turning all the contrivances of her judges into foolishness, was, that she had nothing to confess that she was not ready to tell in the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... as Jim came up, 'I thought you was running. Whoa!' The last remark was addressed to a bored-looking horse attached to the mowing-machine. From the expression on its face, the animal evidently voted the whole process pure foolishness. He pulled up without hesitation, and Biffen turned ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... fetch that Dave Blount a smack in the jaw.'" Mrs. Ferris moved uneasily in her chair: "I dressed and come here, but when I asked fo' Dave he wouldn't step outside, so I just lost patience with his foolishness and took a crack at him standing where I'm standing now, but he ducked and you can still see, ma'am"—turning to the embarrassed Mrs. Ferris—"where my knuckles made a dint in the door-jamb. I got him ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... "'Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.' ... 'Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... foolishness. Love is only stupid, and ought to be guarded against as the worst possible mistake. Love always means misery ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... seizures, Peter was, and every time they broke out in a fresh place. The Old Home House itself was one of his inspirations, so was the hirin' of college waiters, the openin' of the two 'Annex' cottages, the South Shore Weather Bureau, and a whole lot more. Sometimes, as in the weather-bureau foolishness, the disease left him and t'other two patients—meanin' me and Cap'n Jonadab—pretty weak in the courage, and wasted in the pocketbook; but gen'rally they turned out good, and our systems and bank accounts was more healthy ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... He remembered once seeing the place where he lived with his wife. "Granny Hill" the boys called her. Bedridden she Was; but so kind as Joe was to her! kept the room so clean!—and the old woman, when he was there, was laughing at some of "t' lad's foolishness." The step was far down the street; but he could see him place the ladder, run up, and light the gas. A longing seized him to be ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... What foolishness then to seek reconciliation, even if it were possible! Reconciliation at this stage would be the ruin of America. If King George were indeed clever, he would eagerly repeal all the obnoxious acts and make every concession; for when the colonies had ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... another thing," he said, "it was you sent my own hound Bran to him. But none of those things you have done will serve you, for he will not leave Doire-da-Bhoth till he gives me satisfaction for everything he has done to me, and every disgrace he has put on me." "It is great foolishness for you, Finn," said Osgar then, "to be thinking Diarmuid would stop in the middle of this plain and you waiting here to strike the head off him." "Who but himself cut the wood this way," said Finn, "and made this ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... "What foolishness is this, Gib?" he demanded. "Are you clean daffy, doin' a barn dance around that rusty capstan, makin' a noise fit to frighten ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... word," said Saffredent, "the only misdeed that I have ever seen punished is foolishness. There is never a murderer, robber, or adulterer condemned by the courts or blamed by his fellows, if only he be as cunning as he is wicked. Oft-time, however, a bad man's wickedness so blinds him that he becomes a fool; and thus, as I have just said, it is the foolish only that are punished, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... the way of learning state secrets than I am, Orme," I answered sarcastically, being rather irritated at the course of events and his foolishness. "What have you heard?" ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... looked over his shoulder as a great gust blew the ashes into the room. "Hey!" he cried. "I almost fancied the shadow of one looking in at the window. Ha, ha! What foolishness! Eh! but it is a fearsome storm. Pray the good Lord that there may be no poor creatures wandering on ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... the most perfect feminist ideal that as yet the world has known; an ideal of service within the home of which full life she is the high-priestess; an ideal turning to foolishness the false values of this industrial age. And this ideal of service, shared by all, gives to the most unlearned Jewish woman the priceless knowledge of an eternal truth: a truth that has to be learnt by each one among us before we can ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... feeling depressed at the sad parts. Then he thought of Williams and Lawson, and reproached himself for having acted that evening very, very foolishly. Alas! this was not the right term; it was more than foolishness to tamper with the voice of conscience, to violate principles which had been inculcated from childhood, to plot wilful deceit, and act a lie. Instead of saying he had acted foolishly, he should have said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight Have mercy upon me, O God! ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... and sending all the youth of his people to the battle southward. To Hawthorne, being in such imperfect sympathy with this feeling and the causes which gave it passion, the war was only vexation and disaster, with much meaninglessness, foolishness, uselessness, however he might try to look at it with Northern eyes. In nothing is his natural detachment from life so marked as in this incapacity to understand the national life in so supreme a crisis and under the ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... foolishness," said von Mahl as he savagely tore the note into little pieces and flung them down. "I will go after this fellow and kill him. I will deal with this ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... it without reconsideration. Though you will allow me to have my own opinion about her foolishness. Grammer is a very wise woman, and she was as wise in that as in other things. You think there was something very fiendish in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury? But remember that the most eminent of our surgeons in past times ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... remember, at least, because it is exactly the most unkind and hard thing you ever said to me—ever dearest, so I remember it by that sign! That you should say such a thing to me—! think what it was, for indeed I will not write it down here—it would be worse than Mr. Powell! Only the foolishness of it (I mean, the foolishness of it alone) saves it, smooths it to a degree!—the foolishness being the same as if you asked a man where he would walk when he lost his head. Why, if you had asked St. Denis beforehand, he would have thought it a ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... law, even if he can recite only a small portion (of the law), but, having forsaken passion and hatred and foolishness, possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind, he, caring for nothing in this world or that to come, has indeed ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... may be those without which a gentleman's library is not complete. And in the present imperfect arrangement of life one may be a bookman and yet have very few books, since he has not the wherewithal to purchase them. It is the foolishness of his kind to desire a loved author in some becoming dress, and his fastidiousness to ignore a friend in a fourpence-halfpenny edition. The bookman, like the poet, and a good many other people, is ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... advanced a step or two, and Gloria regarded him steadfastly. Meeting the pure light of those lovely eyes, he lost something of his ordinary self-possession,—he was conscious of a certain sense of embarrassment and foolishness;—his very uniform, ablaze with gold and jewelled orders, seemed a clown's costume compared with the classic simplicity of Gloria's homespun garb, which might have fitly clothed a Greek goddess. Sensible ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... than utter foolishness of this latter Charlie o'er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose, there is but one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch, the sorriest of jargons, compared with which even Roth Welsch is dignified and expressive, has yet one word to express what would be inexpressible ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the just measure of that freedom of conscience, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech and action which we hear so much inflated foolishness about as being the precious possession of the republic. Whereas, in truth, the surest way for a man to make of himself a target for almost universal scorn, obloquy, slander, and insult is to stop ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... some that believe in a bite and a bit, when the men folks are out, but I never did. And then—" she blushed shyly like a girl—"I always want to feel ready in case anyone should come. Just in case. He says it's foolishness, but look at you two, now! How'd I feel if I wasn't prepared! And once—in April, 'twas—a sewing-machine man came. ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... examine the cause and account for the effect;—when, to cite reverently the words of the wisest, "He applies his heart to know and to search, and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness." ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and sensible thing, a necessary and indispensable part of his own nature. And that, as far as I can see, is perfectly true. But sometimes it is unavoidable, it would seem, to do foolish things—if only to convince oneself of one's own foolishness. On the other hand, this policy on the part of Man was certainly very wise—wiser than he knew—for in attempting to drive out Sex (which of course he could not do) he entered into a conflict which was bound to end in the expulsion of SOMETHING; and that something was the domination, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... would break him of this woman foolishness, so I told everybody dad was a Mormon bishop, and had a grand palace at Salt Lake City, and owned millions of gold mines and tabernacles and wanted to marry a thousand women and take them to Utah and place ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... of course, prepared to argue for my purpose, but would rather not do so. Briefly, I hold it a vital obligation to spend this night in the Grey Room, and I ask that no obstacle of any kind be raised to prevent my doing so. The wisdom of man is foolishness before the wit of God, and what I desire to do is God's will and wish, impressed upon me while I knelt for long hours and prayed to know it. I am convinced, and that should be enough. In this matter I am far from satisfied that all has yet been done, within the Almighty's purpose and ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... her back toward him. "Tell me," he said, "what time the swan passed. I am following it, and come out and point the direction." "Do you think you can catch up to it?" she said. "Yes," he answered. "Naubesah" (foolishness), she said. She, however, went out and pointed in the direction he should go. The young man went slowly till the sun arose, when he commenced travelling at his accustomed speed. He passed the day in running, and when night came, he was unexpectedly pleased to find himself near another town; ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... not to be reassured quickly. It was very seldom that her equanimity was disturbed, only in fact when her deepest feelings were concerned, and this made her breakdown the more complete. She apologised tearfully for her foolishness at rehearsal, which she set down to bodily fatigue. She had been to see poor Squinny that morning, and she thought he really was dying at last. He had cried so, and she hadn't known how to comfort him, and then when she had got home there had been ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... stop. Even after to have fifty years, think, fifty years, still they work. They work even with the children old enough to keep them. For many months The Skinny One, she who gives milk to the baby of Giacomo, had the habit to find him such work, like the foolishness of your painter. And Giacomo has already three children more than fifteen. Ma——" Biaggio snorted his contempt. Then suddenly his manner changed. He leaned back in his chair, and apparently dismissed the subject with a wave of his ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... Dante had chosen a heathen Roman poet, Virgil, as his guide through Hell, and a beautiful maiden as his companion on the way to heaven. That was foolishness and blasphemy. ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... of worrying for forty-four years over the two lost provinces when the nation was mistress of enormous and undeveloped lands in other countries! . . . Now they were going to pay the penalty for such exasperating and clamorous foolishness. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... his message Jesus told the story of the rich man who was heaping up goods for selfish enjoyment in future years, and who was suddenly confronted by the necessity which death brings of leaving to others all that he had amassed. His foolishness consisted in forgetting that fortune and life itself are dependent upon the will of God, and that a man really owns nothing but owes everything to God, and that the real value of life consists in the unselfish use of wealth ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... wore away, and the old relations, never very familiar, were resumed. Indeed, it seemed at length that Professor Macadam had forgotten all about the affair, or if he remembered it at all, did so only as of an exhibition of foolishness which his own force and wisdom had checked forever. When therefore Professor Morgan's book appeared it was read at once with interest, as the work of a scientist, who, though not a veteran, was of undeniable ability ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Jonson were vagrants, deserving of the stocks; poetry was foolishness; law, politics, and money-making the sole occupations worthy of a masculine and vigorous mind. "For a profound knowledge of the common law of England," says the biographer, "he stands unrivaled. As a judge he was above all suspicion of corruption; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... get away my money,' says Primus, for I put it safe away in Dinah's teapot afore I come out;' and then he showed all his ivories from ear to ear. 'I think all this 'are's sort o' foolishness,' ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Was ist's!" snorted the older man. "You are a good boy, Roger, but you are full of foolishness. You ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... who were not only quite certain that everything was wrong morally, but told us that the illegitimate birth rate was going to be enormous. Their accusations against our ordinary girls were monstrous. There was some excitement and foolishness, but anybody who was really working and dealing with it as the Patrol were, knew the accusations were ridiculous. The illegitimate birth rate of our country is lower than before, which is the best reply to, and the vindication of the men ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... consent. 'Then,' replied the lady, 'I shall be happy, and please your grace'. 'So thou shalt, but not to be a fool and marry; I have his consent given to me, and I vow thou shalt never get it into thy possession. So go to thy business, I see thou art a bold one to own thy foolishness so readily[93].'" ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... of Socrates) then considers what would happen if the course of nature brought to the prisoners a release from their fetters and a remedy for their foolishness, ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... Ben!" he exclaimed, in a burst of temper, "do you mean to tell me you don't know that George's blamed foolishness is the talk of the town? Why, he hasn't let Sally out of his sight ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... and alway with those who in the purity of young hearts rush in where angels fear to tread; if these, Kirkwood and his ilk, be fools, thank God for them, for with such foolishness is life savored and made sweet and sound! To Kirkwood the warp of the world and the woof of it was Romance, and it wrapped him round, a magic mantle to set him apart from all things mean and sordid ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... affectionately among his friends as Stub, or Peewee or Pygmy. This last name was frequently shortened into Pyg, much to Fred's disgust, though he had learned better than to lose his temper because of teasing or little things that did not just suit him. He had given up such foolishness long ago. ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... replied, "I think Louis has gone off his head. He has taken a very much inferior post at a very inferior place. A restaurant of a different class altogether—not at all comme il faut; a little place for the multitude—Giatron's, in Soho. The foolishness of it —for all his old clients must be useless! No one would eat in such a hole. It is ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... straight into his eyes]. Really now, I refuse to listen to such foolishness.... Only look kindly at me once, instead of bearing me to the end ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... melodramatic nonsense. I told you straight horse sense, which is that if you took more interest in your work, in the work that every woman of your class and position has to do, you'd have less time to think foolishness—and your husband ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... houses of entertainment, or to be seen walking in the streets with them. Trajan also oppressed and banished the Pantomimists. Under Caligula, however, they were received with great favour, and Aurelius made them priests of Apollo. Nero, who carried everything to the extremity of foolishness, was not content in patronising the Pantomimes, but must needs assist, and appear himself, as a Mimi. Here again, in Nero, another claimant as the author of Pantomime ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... considerable knowledge of human nature, and the injustice of his fellows no longer troubled him. Accordingly he allowed the complaints of the men to go in at one ear and at once to come out at the other. The burghers, too, soon became convinced of the foolishness of their conduct, and learnt the lesson of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... meet him; no doubt to interchange tender words and vows with him; to forgive, to be forgiven, about some sweet bit of lover's folly, the dearer for its very foolishness. She listens for her footsteps as she returns along the corridor, dressed no doubt in her prettiest gown, decked out to make herself fair ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... see such dumb foolishness," says he. "I'd love to have anybody ketch me a drinkin' three or four quarts of such stuff out ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... once." He took an evening newspaper out of his pocket and strolled toward one of the front windows; then he turned to her. "You and I might as well understand each other, Jennie," he went on. "I can see how this thing came about. It was a piece of foolishness on my part not to have asked you before, and made you tell me. It was silly for you to conceal it, even if you didn't want the child's life mixed with mine. You might have known that it couldn't be done. That's neither here nor there, though, now. The thing that I want ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... on the bridge.' Wisha! but I fought I was after spaking very quiet, and up she got and caught up the basket, and I dodged it by good luck, but after that I walked off and left her to satisfy her foolishness with b'ating the wall if it pl'ased her. I 'd no call for her company anny more, and I took a vow I 'd never spake a word to her again while the world stood. So all is over since then betune Biddy Con'ly and me. No, I don't ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... that it is not. And for not making it in my case, I certainly cannot help blaming Ernestine a little. She must have known, that, had I not been flushed with wine, I never would have taken the liberty with her that I did. As it is, however, I am not only pained at the consequences of my foolishness, but deeply mortified ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... play their parts, Kari brought them before me, whom in their foolishness they worshipped, believing me to be in truth a god. Then he told them to have no fear, since I would command the armies ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... he now?" Grimes' rising inflection indicated nervous tension. "Did a man with a bad heart come here in the dead of night for nothing but that foolishness?" Grimes glared at his three visitors. "You bet ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... seem rather strange, but a great deal that's told is foolishness. He never thrashed any one," answered the monk. "Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... right when he wrote the "Testimonium Animae naturaliter Christianae."[969] And when it was sufficiently demonstrated that "the world by philosophy knew not God (as a Redeeming God and Saviour), then it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." This was all a dispensation of divine providence, which was determined by, or "in, the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... dare to believe, that a bright era of undisciplined folly is about to dawn over the modern world, and therefore I speak to you, beautiful pink children, and I ask you to recognise your youth, and your exquisite potentiality for foolishness. For in youth, only in delicate, delicious youth, can we acquire the rudiments of the beautiful art of folly. When we are old we are so crusted with the hideous lichen of wisdom and experience, so gnarled with thought, and ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Reddin's hoof-beats. All man's desires—predatory, fugitive, or merely negative—wander away into those dark halls, and are heard no more. Among the pillars of the night is there One who listens and remembers, and judges the foolishness of man, not by effects, but by motives? And does that One, in the majesty of everlasting vitality and resistless peace, ever see how we run after the painted butterflies of our desires and fall down the dark precipice? And if He sees and hears the wavering, calamitous life of all creatures, and ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... from her, he could not help a surreptitious studying of her. While he held his own in the general fun and foolishness, it was his hostess that mostly filled the circle of his eye and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... a better sort of a place than this poor shed, scarcely fit to shelter a gipsy's donkey from a snow-storm. When once the mind strays away from the truth, it's impossible to say what follies it won't believe. People don't seem to see the foolishness and nonsense of their own stones. If they'd seen her, as I have, in her right mind, they'd know that a friend of the Evil One couldn't talk as she talks; and as for flying, poor old creature! she can scarcely drag one foot after the other,' Jenny Davis is a thoughtful ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... a question of heart. There'd be no bride cakes made at all if we thought first about our heads. I'm quite aware it's foolishness, but I've a wish to see my father sitting at my table eating my wedding cake on my ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... talk such foolishness! Come, mother, your voice sounds very hoarse and tired. Hadn't you better ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... when "children" and "kids" were really looked upon as being more akin than now. Beside the terms of contempt and sarcasm,—goose, loon, pig, calf, donkey, etc.,—those figures of speech which, the world over, express the sentiment of the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon regarding the foolishness of babes,—we, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,—"a jewel of a babe," and the like,—legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... not with the trade. The business was good enough to provide him with the money for Kamala, and it earned him much more than he needed. Besides from this, Siddhartha's interest and curiosity was only concerned with the people, whose businesses, crafts, worries, pleasures, and acts of foolishness used to be as alien and distant to him as the moon. However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them, in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still aware that there was something which separated ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... I could not help seeing how much the people spent in {139} foolishness. They have so many idol processions, which cost a great deal of money. The people gladly give to keep up their worship, as they are in darkness and know not the name of Jesus, which is the only name under heaven given among men whereby ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... a stranger all unknown to him, or gone off alone without telling any one about it. And you were shown the folly and uselessness of such a proceeding by arriving on the scene and being utterly unable to extricate him from his position. If children would realize their weakness and foolishness more in these days, they would develop into better men and women, but self-sufficiency and self-conceit are signs ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... kingdom, of which in truth their own composition finally disinherited them at the moment when they were conceived in a mother's womb. The first of the famous Five Propositions of Jansen, which were a stumbling-block to popes and to the philosophy of the eighteenth-century foolishness, put this clear and permanent truth into a mystic and perishable formula, to the effect that there are some commandments of God which righteous and good men are absolutely unable to obey, though ever so disposed to do them, and God does not give ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... prairie, dead." Some of the young men said: "Oh well, we have started, we had better go on. Perhaps it is only a mistake. Let us go on and try to take some horses anyhow." E-k[u]s'-kini said: "Yes, that is very true. To go home is all foolishness; but remember that it is by your wish that we are going on." He wanted to go back, not on his own account, but for the sake of his young ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... der man speak foolishness! Gif me a hand, Bill, und I vill get up und be hung." He crawled stiffly to his feet and looked about him. "Herr Gott! listen to der man! He vood hang me! Ho! ho! ho! I tank not! Yes, I ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... grief had driven her insane; and now when she observed the unnatural brightness in her eyes, and saw what she had done, she too thought it possible that her mind was partially unsettled; so she said gently, but firmly: "This is no time for foolishness, Hagar. They are waiting for us in the sickroom; so make haste and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... the whitewashin' as it dried 'as pealed off, and came down just about. You look up—the ceilin' is ten times worse than afore. It looks as if it were measly. I wouldn't sweep up the flakes as fell off just to let Jonas see what comes of his foolishness. I told him it would be so, but he wouldn't believe me, and now let him see for himself—there ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... believe thou art not responsible for thine own foolishness!" her husband exclaimed angrily. "If that prelate cousin of Saraceni comes again to thy salon, let him be refused! He shall not prate to thee of 'law' and 'supremacy,' who hath sought for this occasion to embroil us with the Holy See. For the Senate hath learned to-day, through the trustworthy ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... talk foolishness! A mile away those dam Tennessee constables would be able to see a plain barrel which ain't got no paint on it at all, and now you tell me I should paint a barrel so blue as the sky, and yet it should get through from here to Memphis. Are you crazy in the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... We go, but I return. Au revoir. And talk woman's foolishness till I get back—do! I want to be here when you get off ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the sun pretty strong just then, I slipped it off an' hitched it atop o' the oar to dry an' be a flag at the same time, till I could rig up some kind o' streamer, out o' the seaweed. An' then I was forced to vomit. And that's about the last thing, Mister Geake, I can mind doin'. 'Tis all foolishness after that. They tell me that a 'Merican schooner, the Shawanee, sighted my shirt flappin', an' sent a boat an' took me off an' landed me at New Orleens. My head was bad—oh, very bad—an' they put me in a 'sylum an' cured me. But they took eight year' over it, an' I doubt ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... smiling. "Benjamin," he said solemnly, "if any foolishness on the part of the boy brings you to such wisdom, the hand of the Lord will ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... fathom it; we know not the paths of the souls of Pascal and Gordon, of Plotinus and St. Paul. They are wise with a wisdom not of this world, or with a foolishness ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... if she did not love me passionately now it was only because I, in my foolishness, had willed it otherwise. For the first time I longed to have her as my own; for the first time I rebelled. I looked at her hungeringly until her cheeks grew red and her eyelids fluttered. I had a wild impulse to throw my arms around her, and kiss her as I had never kissed her before and bid her ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... way of peering under brow I do not like. If you see anything In me that irks you I will painfully Labor to lose it: do but show me favor, And as I am your faithful humble wife This foolishness ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fortunes for others, he could not reveal for his own satisfaction so simple a matter as the source of these disappearances. In a foolish rage he accused his nephew, the son of Paao. Paao was indignant, but, with even greater foolishness, he killed his son, in order to open the boy's stomach and prove that there was no fruit in it. This act so rankled in his mind that he decided to leave the country and forget it, and to that ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... indeed; and that where the age of experience has not produced this sort of clear maturity in the spirit, then it produces either despair or folly, or an exaggerated shirking of reality, which, being a falsehood, is wickeder than despair, and far more inhuman than mere foolishness. Thus those who in the third phase of which I speak have not attained the wisdom which I here recognize will often sink into a passion of avarice, accumulating wealth which they cannot conceivably enjoy; a stupidity ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... foolishness, my daughter, I sits like a stone, and he springs to his feet, and snatches up his things, and says, 'Good-bye, old gipsy woman, and thank you very much. I should like to stay with you,' he says, 'but Nurse is calling me, and Mother does get so frightened if I am long away and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... outside; an' fwhat ut was amongst us we'll never know till Judgment Day! 'Twas the nature av the baste to put the comether on the best av thim - not the prettiest by any manner av manes - but the like av such woman as you cud lay your band on the Book an' swear there was niver thought av foolishness in. An' for that very reason, mark you, he was niver caught. He came close to ut wanst or twice, but caught he niver was, an' that cost him more at the ind than the beginnin'. He talked to me more ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... tell you how the country they resided in was, but how it was getting on towards being what it ought to be, and how necessary it was that their readers should subscribe more freely, and not get any foolishness into their heads about obtaining an inadequate supply of souls for their money. I also found fearful confirmation of my medical friends' statements about its unhealthiness, and various details of the distribution of cotton shirts over which I did ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... down on th' thu'faih an' Ah set mahse'f down beside him twell he wake up in th' mawnin', not knowin' what hahm maght come to him. An' he neveh did have no hotel in that town, seh,—no, seh. He been talkin' reglah foolishness all that theah time. An' he sais: 'Yo' stay by me, boy. Ah's go'n' a' go West to mek mah fo'chun.' Well, seh, Ah was lookin' fo' a place to mek some fo'chun mahse'f fo mah folks, an' that theah Cincinnati ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... was a sad sort of a thing. I'm a tough old fellow, but I declare I'm sorry for that poor woman. Fool to marry Phillips? Of course she was, but most of us are fools, some time or other. And, if I don't miss my guess, she has repented of her foolishness many times and all the time. She wrote me she knew she was going to die. And she said—— But here is the letter. Read it, ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln |
