"Good-for-nothing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lord know such a good-for-nothing fellow?" interrupted Jankiel. But the lord of Kamiorika bade ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
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... lie in. (Smith winced.) She never disgraced herself like that; and if he had sent the wench to service, or stopped her going down to that pothouse with the fellows, this would not have happened. She always told him how it would end. He was a good-for-nothing, drunken brute of a man, and had brought her to all this misery; and she ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
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... out from a thousand avenues of distinction and usefulness, for they are richly endowed, just because they are made to be women. They should not be made to feel that it is degrading to be a woman, to feel, as a man expressed it to me the other day, that "women are such good-for-nothing creatures." I love noble, "strong-minded," and strong-hearted women. I wish we had more of them. I know of no way to make them but to give our girls more active Employment. Every girl should have a trade, a business, a profession, or some honorable and ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
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... ought to go to the picnic this afternoon if you are feeling so played out," Mother Jenkins added. "Your Ma will think I haven't taken good care of you. It was them good-for-nothing boys a-coming that wore ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
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... good-for-nothing, and find out on dry bread that a noun's a name of anything, like helefunt, hantelope, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
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... will do. Now, fancy that I am your father, just arrived; answer me boldly as if it were he himself.—"What! you scoundrel, you good-for-nothing fellow, you infamous rascal, unworthy son of such a father as I, dare you appear before me after what you have done, and after the infamous trick you have played me during my absence? Is this, you rascal, the reward of all my care? Is this the fruit of all my devotion? Is this the respect ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
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... the Buddhist, "is quite in harmony with my own views. Come along then with me to the palace of the Monitory Vision Fairy, and let us deliver up this good-for-nothing object, and have done with it! And when the company of pleasure-bound spirits of wrath descend into human existence, you and I can then enter the world. Half of them have already fallen into the dusty universe, but the whole number of them have not, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
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... female character, he constantly said to me, "I am writing such a part for you!" and had no notion that the only part capable of any effect at all in the piece was that of Julian St. Pierre, the good-for-nothing brother of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
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... "Oh, you good-for-nothing! There's not a decent shirt left! Now you may have your choice whether you'll be called 'Jack in Tatters' ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
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... wood. There is often, it seems to me, a sort of refrain in conversation, which one catches everywhere as one comes and goes. Figure my astonishment when I heard from the lips of my good mother the same words with which that good-for-nothing Jacques Richard had made the profession of his brutal faith. 'Go!' she cried, in anger; 'you are all the same. Money is your god. De grosses pieces, that is all you think of in ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
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... rogues have gapped my fine edge, and one good-for-nothing scamp used me to cut down cabbages, but, as he came very near cutting down his younger brother at the same time, he was sent to bed supperless by his father. I have really never performed any drudgery. Like Caesar, 'I came, ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
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... "You good-for-nothing boys! You are always bursting out upon me in some ridiculous way, and I always get taken in because I'm not used to such pranks. Uncle is as bad as the rest, and it's great fun," she said, as the lads came round her, half scolding, half ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
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... Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance; "my poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash, as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are! And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
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... Great Dipper that he'll have you off in forty winks, and the orchestra of the spheres whispers through its million strings and sings your soul to rest. For I tell you here and now, Matilda Anne, I, poor, puny, good-for-nothing, insignificant I, have heard that music of the spheres as clearly as you ever heard Funiculi-Funicula on that little Naples steamer that used to take you to Capri. And when I'd crawl out from under that old wagon-box, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
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... brief pause]. Why, so she did! You good-for-nothing thing, you've spoiled the prettiest dress I ever saw, for me! It was quite my ideal; and now I never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
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... the middle of the room, turned round, and began to laugh ecstatically. "Do you know where it is, you little good-for-nothing? ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
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... scourged with three hundred stripes; but should he intentionally have killed a man, while numbers insist that he ought to be unhesitatingly condemned as guilty, his master will exclaim, "What can the poor wretch do? what can one expect from a good-for-nothing fellow like that?" But should any one else venture to do anything of the kind, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
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... book,—how much I am delighted with you and for you. There is no person to whom I would more gladly have had the honor fall of writing the "Letters from Palmyra." And it is a distinction that places your name among the highest in our—good-for-nothing—literature, as the Martineau considers it. By the bye, you need n't think you are a-going to stand at the head of everything, as she will have it. Have not I written a book too, to say nothing of the names less known of Channing, Irving, Bryant, etc.? And, by the bye, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
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... good-for-nothing brute! You're only fit for the knacker's yard. You wanted to look handsome, did you? Hold your tongue, or I'll break my halter and be at ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
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... come from,' pursued her mother, 'it's cruel that it should go in this way. We never wanted it worse than we do now. It's my belief he's borrowed it himself; a nice thing to borrow for one's own needs, and then throw it away on such a good-for-nothing as that.' ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
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... gravedigger—the boy painted inappropriate figures on the coffins. And just for this reason I feel it my duty to tell you that I don't intend to see my school lose its good name through that good-for-nothing boy ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
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... Whites watched the movements of the boys with some anxiety. "They might, you know," whispered Mrs. Bob, "be after that brood of our cousin's beyond the brook; but no, they've stopped—they are throwing something into the water, and there's that good-for-nothing Nip with them, so we may go back to the nest." But they did not go, for there was that pert Jennie Wren fluttering about, as bold as anything, actually peeping into the bait gourd, and, goodness gracious! she has stolen a worm ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
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... time there was a King who had three sons. The two eldest were lazy, good-for-nothing young men, but the third son, whose name was Charming, was a delightful youth, who was loved by everybody (outside his family) who knew him. Whenever he rode through the town the people used to stop whatever work they were engaged ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
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... attorney, "is to refuse the Colonel, and to refuse Skinner if he comes, just as you have refused this book agent. Stick up for your rights. If they want to sue you, let them sue. You have the money now, and it is better to have that than a lot of good-for-nothing lung-testers. Once you get them on your hands you'll never get rid ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
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... it is at all an advantage to send most young men to Europe. I've seen so many come back conceited, and dissatisfied, and good-for-nothing, that I can't make up my mind to spoil Ben by the same process. He tries very hard to persuade me, that now-a-days, no doctor is fit to be trusted who has not finished off in Paris; but we managed without it thirty ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
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... and overflowing plenty. Some of them were traders—men who bartered their simple wares, such as red Turkey twill, axes, knives, beads, tobacco, pipes, and muskets, for coconut oil and turtle shell. Others were wild, good-for-nothing runaways from whaleships, who then were generally known as "beach-combers"—that is, combing the beach for a living—though that, indeed, was a misnomer, for in those days, except one of these men was either a murderer or a tyrant, he did not "comb" for his living, but simply ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
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... porch, and they had gradually become good friends; he performed little services for her, and received a cup of hot coffee in return. When the cold was very bitter, she always called him in; and then she would tell him about the sea and about her good-for-nothing husband, who kept away and left her to toil for her living by mending nets for the fishermen. In return Pelle felt bound to tell her about Father Lasse, and Mother Bengta who lay at home in the churchyard at Tommelilla. The talk ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
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... which she was holding, and glanced at her as much as to say, "Ah! my child; I understand now why you prefer your good-for-nothing Philippe." ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
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... good-for-nothing fellow, and Segur is a brave and honourable man who never uttered such a falsehood; however, you are right; and because you provided for a few dependents, you are most unjustly reported to have disposed of all offices, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
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... a good deal of truth in this accusation; and yet it cannot be admitted wholly justifiable. In "The Romany Rye" we have a whole chapter devoted to the emphasising of the chastity of the Romany girls, and their self-sacrificing devotion to their husbands. Ursula marries a lazy, good-for-nothing chal, and then expressess her willingness to steal and swindle in order to keep him in comfort. The method is not commendable, but the object that prompts it is highly praiseworthy—from a ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
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... ask you, you idle, lazy, good-for-nothing vagabond. I suppose it was you who kept the girl all this time. Six people coming to dinner, and I've been the whole day without a kitchen-maid. If Margaret Gale hadn't come down to help me, I don't know where we should be; as it is, the dinner ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
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... believe in Mr. Surrey, and what's more, I believe in Miss Ercildoune,—have reason to; and when I hear anybody mixing her up with these onry, good-for-nothing niggers, it's more'n I can stand, so don't let's have any more of it"; and turning with an air which said that subject was ended, Jim took up his forgotten coffee, pulled apart some brands and put the big tin cup on the coals, and then bent ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
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... whistling, "you have not your usual senses about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield—pattern boy of the village. Hold your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish, after all; some good-for-nothing vagrant—that cursed tinker, who goes about with a very vicious donkey—whom, by the way, I caught picking thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks! Shows how the tinker brings up his donkeys! Well, keep a sharp look-out. To-day ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
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... to, you good-for-nothing trash! I've been that worried about you I didn't know what to do. Your traps has been here ever so long, and I've had supper cooked fresh about four times so as to have it hot and good when you come, till at last my patience is just plumb wore out, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
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... I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing scapegrace," said the master, mad with passion, and surprised that Paul made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered the drops around the room. Cipher came ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
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... believe that good-for-nothing rascal broke my saw on purpose, so he wouldn't have ...
— The Tale of Peter Mink - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
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... there was no capital so valuable as the physical soundness of his stock; the moral was easily enough forged or counterfeited. Little Mammy's good-for-nothing mother was sold as readily as a vote, in the parlance of to-day; but no one would pay for a crippled baby. The mother herself would not have taken her as a gift, had it been in the nature of a negro-trader to give away anything. Some doctoring was done,—so little Mammy heard ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
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... dinner flying, with one Mr. Murray, I might have fasted, or gone to an alehouse.—You never said one word of Goody Stoyte in your letter; but I suppose these winter nights we shall hear more of her. Does the Provost(3) laugh as much as he used to do? We reckon him here a good-for-nothing fellow.—I design to write to your Dean one of these days, but I can never find time, nor what to say.—I will think of something: but if DD(4) were not in Ireland I believe seriously I should not think of the place twice a year. Nothing there ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
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... than a turned coat! (Thunders of applause.) I say that this paper is full of wholesome things, and that when it denounces the Minister as a good-for-nothing, as a slanderer, as a thief—it does ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
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... Broken Ring. Translated by C.G. Leland Morning Prayer. Translated by Alfred Baskerville From the Life of a Good-for-nothing. Translated ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
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... up in idleness, teach them to despise labor, let them depend upon someone for a continuously happy time, and you will cultivate the good-for-nothing young man. ...
— Plain Facts • G. A. Bauman
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... souls, and of that bride chamber and marriage, from whence they that have stained their wedding-garment are piteously cast out, bound hand and foot, into outer darkness. When he had thought thereon, and shed bitter tears, he smote upon his breast, driving out evil thoughts, as good-for-nothing drones from the hive. When he rose, and spread out his hands unto heaven, with fervent tears and groans calling upon God to help him, and he said, "Lord Almighty, who alone art powerful and merciful, the hope of the hopeless, and the help of the helpless, remember ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
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... passionately fond of music, and the latter devoted many of his leisure hours to the study of the violin. One fine afternoon our clerical friend was in his study, deeply engaged in writing, when there came along one of those good-for-nothing little Italian players, who planted himself under his study window, and, much to his annoyance, commenced scraping away on a squeaky fiddle. After trying in vain for about fifteen minutes to collect his scattered thoughts, the Doctor descended to the ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
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... as he was, Gus took him by the collar, and shoved him back, and said, "Look at the lady, you brute, and hold your tongue!" And when he looked at my wife's situation, Captain Sparr became redder for shame than he had before been for anger. "I'm sorry she's married to such a good-for-nothing," muttered he, and fell back; and my poor wife and I walked out of the court, and back to our ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... people say: "He comes by this or that naturally, a chip off the old block," meaning that he is only doing what his parents did. This is quite often the case, but there is no reason for it, for a person can break a habit just the moment he masters the "I will." A man may have been a "good-for-nothing" all his life up to this very minute, but from this time on he begins to amount to something. Even old men have suddenly changed and accomplished wonders. "I lost my opportunity," says one. That may be ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
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... house, and seeing Lubotshka's bitter tears, and hearing Grandmamma's lamentations, and listening to Papa and St. Jerome talking together. "He was a fine boy," Papa would say with tears in his eyes. "Yes," St. Jerome would reply, "but a sad scapegrace and good-for-nothing." "But you should respect the dead," would expostulate Papa. "YOU were the cause of his death; YOU frightened him until he could no longer bear the thought of the humiliation which you were about to inflict upon him. ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
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... mouthful, as you see. Pray let me grow to be a trout, And then come here and fish me out. Some alderman, who likes things nice, Will buy me then at any price. But now, a hundred such you'll have to fish, To make a single good-for-nothing dish.' 'Well, well, be it so,' replied the fisher, 'My little fish, who play the preacher, The frying-pan must be your lot, Although, no doubt, you like it not: I fry the fry that can ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
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... week's trekking, especially when the season gets colder, or a night-march has miscarried. Then you never wish to see the sun rise again. There was a time when a man who boasted that he had never seen the sun rise was branded as a lazy sloth, an indolent good-for-nothing, who willingly missed half the pleasures of life. After twenty months continuous trekking in South Africa one is not sure that one's opinions on this subject fall into line with those of the majority. ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
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... fact. But what makes you kiss my hand. Kiss my face, if you please, unless you don't like the look of my wrinkled cheeks. I dare say you never asked after me, or whether your aunt was alive or no. And yet it was my hands received you when you first saw the light, you good-for-nothing fellow! Ah, well, it's all one. But it was a good idea of yours to come here. I say, my dear," she suddenly exclaimed, turning to Maria Dmitrievna, "have ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
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... day, calloooh, callay,'" cried Hippy shaking hands all around. "It seems ages since I saw you girls. How well you all look, only you're not looking at me. These other good-for-nothing fellows are getting all the attention. Hello, Miriam," he called to Miriam Nesbit, who ran eagerly across the floor to meet the newcomers. "There's a prize package for you, too. It's outside the door shaking ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
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... large glasses of brandy-and-water, had warmed his soul into enthusiasm, and made him generous in his promises towards Captain Shandon. His impetuous wife had rebuked him on his return home. She had ordered that he should give no relief to the Captain; he was a good-for-nothing fellow, whom no money would help; she disapproved of the plan of the Pall Mall Gazette, and expected that Bungay would only lose his money in it as they were losing over the way (she always called her brother's establishment "over the way") by ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... good woman when Gerry began to dilate upon their forlorn condition. "Jimson weeds I call 'em. Of all the shiftless, good-for-nothing lots! They can't be much worse off now old ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
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... not have felt that he was the partner of her stupidity; but he had thoughtlessly attempted the impossible thing, and now, contemplating his utter failure, he was in so low a state of mind that he would have taken pen and written himself down, with ordinary honesty, good-for-nothing. He returned to his task, and found the dinner spread. Mrs. Chump gave him champagne, and drank to him, requesting him to challenge her. "We won't be beaten," she said; and at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
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... It's that makes me so glad this morning. I had that good-for-nothing Sam up at four o'clock, helping me saw the boards to build them bins to put the garden sass in. He reckoned you'd a much sight better have been staying in them foreign parts than be giving decent folks such bother. I give him a clip on the ear that made ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
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... servant shuffled his feet. "It's that good-for-nothing piano tuner, Miss Mary," he told her reluctantly. "I reckon you don't know much about him. He's been coming around a lot since you've been away. He's been sticking to Miss Paula like a leech, right ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
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... instant from a denunciatory Psalm to a humorous story. Even his stories were of a religious cast, like those which ministers relate when they gather socially. He told me once about a priest who was strolling along the bank of the Loire, when a drunken sailor accosted him and reviled him as a lazy good-for-nothing, a faineant, and slapped his face. The priest only turned the other cheek to him. "Strike again," he said; and the sailor struck. "Now, my friend," said the priest, "the Scripture tells us that when one strikes us we are to turn the other cheek. There it ends its instruction ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
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... me, hand to hand, thy bow should not avail thee, and numerous arrows[376] whereas now, having grazed the broad part of my foot, thou boastest thus. I regard it not, as though a woman had wounded me, or a silly boy: for idle is the weapon of an unwarlike, good-for-nothing man. From me, indeed, it is otherwise; for if one be touched but slightly, the weapon is piercing, and forthwith renders him lifeless; and the cheeks of his wife are furrowed on both sides, and his children are orphans; ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
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... is dead and buried and nobody cares very much; They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such, But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish, He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
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... exclaimed Will. "Those two birds are the excited and anxious parents of your baby birdies, Ranna, and they feel just about as comfortable as your father and mother would feel if a great giant—" But Will remembered suddenly that poor little Ranna had no mother, and, blushing fiery red, said: "I'm a good-for-nothing old blunderbuss. You tell her, Almy; it's girl's ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
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... to her hard little bed, perhaps some angel, sent to minister to the motherless child, may have known that the "good-for-nothing," ignorant little girl, oppressed with the feeling of her own sinfulness, and full of the thought of her new-found heavenly Friend, was nearer the kingdom of heaven than the petted, admired, winning Stella Brooke, who had ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
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... good soul and to be trusted," said Crevel. "Well, then, do you suppose that I will ever forgive Monsieur Hulot for the crime of having robbed me of Josepha—especially when he turned a decent girl, whom I should have married in my old age, into a good-for-nothing slut, a mountebank, an opera ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
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... precipices cleaving the stony levels of Azuera. Tradition has it that many adventurers of olden time had perished in the search. The story goes also that within men's memory two wandering sailors—Americanos, perhaps, but gringos of some sort for certain—talked over a gambling, good-for-nothing mozo, and the three stole a donkey to carry for them a bundle of dry sticks, a water-skin, and provisions enough to last a few days. Thus accompanied, and with revolvers at their belts, they had started to chop their way with machetes ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
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... with passion,—"I advised you to burthen yourself with that idle and good-for-nothing pauper, who'm you ought rather to send to the workhouse than maintain at your own expense, did I! I advised you to take him as an apprentice; and, so far from getting the regular fee with him, to give him a salary? I advised you to feed him, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
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... ought to have spoken! upon a wondrous ladder of trophes, metaphors and recondite allusions, to what stylistic heights of Asiatic prose I ought to have ascended! and instead, I twaddled like a schoolmaster. Decidedly, Lisa is right, and I am good-for-nothing. However," Jurgen added, hopefully, "it appeared to me that when I last saw her, a year ago this evening, Lisa was somewhat less ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
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... French soldier to serve me, and I was well pleased when I found that the man was a hairdresser by trade, and a great talker by nature, for he could take care of my beautiful head of hair, and I wanted to practise French conversation. He was a good-for-nothing fellow, a drunkard and a debauchee, a peasant from Picardy, and he could hardly read or write, but I did not mind all that; all I wanted from him was to serve me, and to talk to me, and his French was pretty good. He was an amusing rogue, knowing by heart a quantity of erotic songs ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
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... Morton's," and he broke out with his ugly laugh, and says he, "You be, be you, you unnatural little vagabond?"—those were his very words, ma'am—"but a father is a father, and if he gives up his rights he must know the reason why." He wanted me, the good-for-nothing, to give him half a sovereign at once, or he would take off the child on the spot, but, by good luck, she had been frightened and run away, the dear, and I had got the door between me and him, so I told him to be off till you came ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... lame last evening. It must have been your carelessness, you good-for-nothing loungers; and if he is not well enough to take me to the fair to-morrow, at least, I'll have the whole set of you lamed for life!" she exclaimed, angrily, as she turned off and went up to the house—not caring so much, after all, for her ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
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... as Editha came within hearing distance: "How long you have been, you little good-for-nothing! I have looked out four times for you. Was Astrid away from home? Did you return by Eric's Fiord, and learn whose ship it is that is ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
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... sixteen. It's not at all uncommon for girls in this part of the country to marry before they are that old. But I know I'm not half good enough for you, Elsie. A king might be proud to win you for his bride, and I'm only a poor, good-for-nothing cripple, not worth anybody's acceptance." And he turned away his face, with something that sounded very ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
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... contrary!" cried the young man impetuously; "the old gentleman is kindness itself; I appear to be base and good-for-nothing; but I have no other choice. Make the best excuse for me that your good nature and your ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
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... says to the old man: 'Is he gone?' and he says, 'Happen and he is gone.' I pulled him by the hand; he opened his eyes and said: 'I feel better now.' Then he remained quite still for about five paters and aves, and smiled toward the ceiling. This made me angry, and I says: 'Oh, you good-for-nothing, how can you laugh at my misery? But he only smiled at death, not at my misery, for he began breathing very hard, and that was all he did until the ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
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... been about, you good-for-nothing?" he shouted. "Why didn't you stay with the others? You might have lent me a hand with the donkey ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
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... that reminded me of Consuelo were these: that she was a poor child, taken up by this singing-master, and educated thoroughly and severely by him; that she loved his son, who was a good-for-nothing fellow, like Anzoleto, and at last discarded him; that she refused the son of an English earl, and, when he fell sick, his father condescended to entreat for him, just as the Count of Rudolstadt did for his son; that, though plain and low in stature, when singing her best parts she appears beautiful, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
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... is mad with terror, Borroughcliffe," cried the colonel, bending his glistening eyes fondly on his niece, "and you will have to furnish my good-for-nothing, gouty old person with a corporal's guard, to watch my nightcap, or the silly child will have an uneasy pillow, till the sun rises once more. But ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
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... growing arrogance, the innate ingratitude, the presumption, the lack of respect for superiors, the pride that the spirit of darkness infused in the young, the lack of manners, the absence of courtesy, and so on. From this he passed to coarse jests and sarcasm over the presumption which some good-for-nothing "prompters" had of teaching their teachers by establishing an academy for ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
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... inclined to think the Private an irresponsible good-for-nothing, look hard at the next Commissionaire you meet on the street. That smart, clean, well-brushed man, with his bronzed face, his bright keen eyes, and general look of self-respect, was once a soldier, and indeed it is soldiering ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
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... again and a lecture from his captain! And Mossieu Daspry pretends that, with kindness and patience, he succeeds in turning Duvauchel and fellows of his kidney into his best soldiers! What humbug! As though there were any way of taming those beggars, short of discipline! A pack of good-for-nothing scoundrels, who would fly across the frontier the moment ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
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... Aunt Betsy grew very calm. She knew Helen was there and could now enjoy the distributing of the gifts, going up herself two or three times, and wondering why anybody should think of her, a good-for-nothing old woman. The skates and the smelling bottles both went safely to Sylvia and John, while Mrs. Deacon Bannister looked radiant when her name was called and she was made the recipient of a jar of butternut pickles, such as only Aunt Betsy ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
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... You are not worthy of Anne Mordaunt's love, and therefore have never presumed to imagine that she could bestow it on such a poor, miserable, worthless, good-for-nothing a fellow as yourself. I have a great deal of the same very proper feeling; but, at the same time, each of us is quite confident of his own success, or he would have given up the pursuit ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
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... comrade," interrupted the Greek youth lightly, "don't put on such a long face. I foresee that you are about to give me a lecture, and I don't want the tone of remonstrance to be the last that I shall hear. I know that I'm a wild, good-for-nothing fellow, and can guess all you would say to me. Let us rather talk of your speedy return to Hellas, for, to tell you the truth, I feel as if the loss of you would leave me like a poor man who has been crippled ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
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... bearing and his inspired words on the threshold of eternity moved my conscience and caused a feeling of respect and pity for him in my breast as well as in others of our party. When Juan de Dios Carasco, who was known and despised by all for being a good-for-nothing thieving coward, drew his gun to shoot the Navajo in the back, I could not control my anger. 'Stop,' I shouted, 'you miserable hen thief, or you die at my hands, and now. This Indian should die, but not in such a manner. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
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... do everything as I tell you," Mrs. Chatterton leaned forward, and said with great deliberateness, "else you will lose this chance to help your mother. And you will never have another like it, but will grow up to be a good-for-nothing little thing when Polly and all the rest are earning money for your Mamsie, as you ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
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... a heartless reprobate, sir; a heartless, thankless, good-for-nothing reprobate. I have done with you. You are my son—that I cannot help; but you shall have no more part or parcel in me as my child, nor I in you ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
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... and when the weather gets warmer, thou must come with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again. At present the country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is harsh and frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine uncle, and that, winter or summer, is always warm ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... I want a dog for my daughter, sir, to keep off a worthless, good-for-nothing dude who comes pestering around here after her because he knows that her father has a lot of money, and thinks that if he marries his daughter he can move to ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
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... only in the difference between the price paid for the work and its actual value. Instead of giving the beggar two sous, the institution supplies him with work on which it loses two sous. But at the same time it converts the good-for-nothing beggar into an honest breadwinner, who has earned perhaps 1 franc 50 centimes. 150 centimes for 10! That is to say, the receiver of a benefaction in which there is nothing humiliating has increased it fifteenfold! That is to say, fifteen thousand millions for one ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
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... it to any one who goes meddling in my brush cupboard now that I've just put all in order against the prying and nozzling of the good-for-nothing baggage what's coming along with ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
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... David's good-for-nothing son Absalom had brought about the murder of one of his brothers, and had fled the country. His father weakly loved the brilliant blackguard, and would fain have had him back, but was restrained by ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
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... recognition of your services will take shape in that direction," said Curtis. "Why, man, if it were not for you I might have been charged with murder, and if it were not for Clancy and you, Hermione might now be in Paris with her good-for-nothing father. . . . I'll talk ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
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... not going to talk of Bob: lads will get into trouble sometimes. If Mr. Eric had not been so interfering at that time, ordering Bob off the premises whenever he caught sight of him, and calling him a good-for-nothing loafer and all sorts of hard names,—why, he gave Bob a black eye one day when he was doing nothing but shying stones at the birds in the kitchen-garden,—if it had not been for Mr. Eric's treatment of Bob I might ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
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... Waife, with an abject, depressed manner; "I hope I said nothing that would have misbecome a poor broken vagabond like me. I am no prince in disguise,—a good-for-nothing varlet who should be too grateful to have something to ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... she kissed him, "you must forgive me if you're worse off than you ever expected to be. But it's the fault o' the law,—it's none o' mine," he added angrily. "It's the fault o' raskills. Tom, you mind this: if ever you've got the chance, you make Wakem smart. If you don't, you're a good-for-nothing son. You might horse-whip him, but he'd set the law on you,—the law's made ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
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... fault of what his father tells him. If I complained, he would say that I did not want him to learn. I really require some one to take care of the house; and if the boy had no mind for this sort of work, they ought not to have put me to expense. But they are good-for-nothing, and are working toward a certain end of their own. Enough, I beg you to relieve me of the boy; he has bored me so that I cannot bear it any longer. The muleteer has been so well paid that he can very well take him back to Florence. Besides, he is a friend of the father. Tell ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
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... in delirium, I fancied that you were corning to kill me, and early next morning I spent my last farthing on buying a revolver from that good-for-nothing fellow Lyamshin; I did not mean to let you do it. Then I came to myself again... I've neither powder nor shot; it has been lying there on the shelf till now; wait ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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... why you turn aside to talk of complexion when the whole situation is so odd," said Ellen, speaking to her father. "I am not able to bring myself down to a realization of it yet, although I have been trying to ever since we got that letter from that good-for-nothing country, away off yonder. You must know that it strikes me differently from what it does any one else. It is all romance with ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
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... native of London, a good-for-nothing lad, idle and dissolute. When leaving England his father warned him that if he didn't alter he'd end his days on the gallows. Served various sentences on all sorts of charges. Over six years ago we took him in hand, admitted him into Prison Gate Brigade Home, where he became ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
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... Quinnepeg Pond was the name of it, but the young ladies of the Apollinean Institute were very anxious that it should be called Crystalline Lake. It was here that the young folks used to sail in summer and skate in winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented, good-for-nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vagabonds, that sawed a little wood or dug a few potatoes now and then under the pretence of working for their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every winter. And here those three young people were drowned, a few summers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
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... dear, go away! How you do worry, jumping and dancing about! And what a stupid, good-for-nothing leaf you've brought! Fetch me one that's not completely riddled ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
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... old aunt is kept very happy by the patient, cheerful care of this good-for-nothing niece. Secondly, a crotchety uncle, for whom she reads, runs, writes, and sews so willingly that he cannot get on without her. Thirdly, various relations who are helped in various ways. Fourthly, one dear friend never forgotten, and a certain cousin cheered by praise which is more to him ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
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... discredit with the proper name, which was the only word he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a cheerful ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
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... them Irishers again?' exclaimed the owner of the red face. 'The idle vagabonds! I vow to goodness that all our money, and food and clothing, too, I believe, go to feed a set of good-for-nothing, ragged rascals.' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
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... cupboard, wrung out the dishcloth according to orders, and hung it on its nail. When this was finished she looked about with pride. The children were unusually peaceful; altogether, the day promised well. "Mother'll not say that I'm a good-for-nothing girl this time," thought Mell, and tried to recollect ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
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... man, and be ready in doing kindnesses. He is a good-for-nothing fellow who eateth by the toil ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
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... overheard Farrington threaten to foreclose a mortgage, and the youth suddenly realized his responsibilities. Leaving school, he secured a job in the roundhouse at Stanley Junction. Here, notwithstanding the plots, hatred and malice of a worthless, good-for-nothing fellow named Ike Slump, whose place he took, Ralph made fine progress. He saved the railroad shops from wholesale destruction, by assisting John Griscom to run an engine into the flames and drive a car of powder out of the way. For this brave deed Ralph secured the friendship of the master ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
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... are the people to whose assistance I go. I go to help the poor. But who is the poor man? There is no one poorer than myself. I am a thoroughly enervated, good-for-nothing parasite, who can only exist under the most special conditions, who can only exist when thousands of people toil at the preservation of this life which is utterly useless to every one. And I, that plant-louse, which devours the foliage of trees, wish to help the tree in its growth and ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
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... the same instant. There hobbles Goody Foster, a sour and bitter old beldam, looking as if she went to curse, and not to pray, and whom many of her neighbors suspect of taking an occasional airing on a broomstick. There, too, slinking shamefacedly in, you observe that same poor do-nothing and good-for-nothing whom we saw castigated just now at the whipping-post. Last of all, there goes the tithing-man, lugging in a couple of small boys, whom he has caught at play beneath God's blessed sunshine, in a back lane. What native of Naumkeag, whose recollections ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
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... mention them!" said Vernon. "Worse than good-for-nothing. She esteems such talents very lightly, and I shall even lose the small solace to my sorrows I had hoped they would have afforded me. Even this sad consolation is denied me. My Mary is indifferent to poetry—she ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
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... Mrs. Peckover, "it's almost as great a surprise to me to be in London, as it is—Be quiet, young Good-for-Nothing; I won't even shake hands with you if you don't behave yourself!" These last words she addressed to Zack, whose favorite joke it had always been, from the day of their first acquaintance at Valentine's ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
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... told her the whole story, adding that she supposed the old lady had come to herself and got tired waiting; in time, however, the baby was missed, and that threw a new light on affairs. Mrs. Wilkie was frantic; she denounced Bridget as a good-for-nothing, refused to sit down to dinner, and set off with her mother in the ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
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... of a fortnight, what with my own cleverness, and the diligence of him I had chosen for my patron, I learned to jump for the king of France, and not to jump for the good-for-nothing landlady; he taught me to curvet like a Neapolitan courser, to move in a ring like a mill horse, and other things which might have made one suspect that they were performed by a demon in the shape of ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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... farthing on funeral services. They were accordingly borne to the paupers' graves which he had caused to be prepared for them, and when he saw them both interred, he cried out that he was well rid of such good-for-nothing children, but that he should be perfectly happy only when the remaining five were buried with the first two, and that when he had got rid of the last he himself would burn down his palace as a bonfire ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
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... people, these Finns and ... Greeks," he thought. "Useless, good-for-nothing, disgusting people. They only cumber the earth. What is the good ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
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... "Thou good-for-nothing imp!" exclaimed Mary Antony, her old face crinkling with delight. "Thou little vain man, in thy red jerkin! Beshrew thine impudence, intruding into a place where women alone do dwell, and no male thing may enter. I would have thee take warning by the fate of ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
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... father and mother are poor as church mice; and when his father was coming to Peking the boy must beg to come too, and the father like a fool must take him, and be at great expense for travelling, &c. One thing made me furious. Out of the money I gave him he spent about 4s. or more buying his good-for-nothing son an elegant snuff-bottle. In short, the man's folly makes it utterly useless to help him. I once before relieved him from threatened detention for debt for the amount of twopence-halfpenny, just after I had made him a present, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
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... the audacity to wish to touch your majesty's sacred person—he, a good-for-nothing boy, a mere shoemaker's apprentice, perhaps! And even if he could make shoes to perfection they would be no use without ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
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... know it at the time, the moving-picture company to which Ward Porton belonged had also numbered among its members Dave's former school enemy, Link Merwell. From Link, Ward Porton, who was the good-for-nothing nephew of a Burlington lumber dealer, had learned the particulars concerning Dave's childhood and how he had been placed in the Crumville poorhouse and listed as of ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
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... dread the noise and turmoil of it, and visit it but now and then, preferring the quiet of my country retreat; which shows that the bustling time of life is over with me, and that I am settling down into a sober, quiet, good-for-nothing old gentleman." ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
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... Miss Dashwood? Poor thing! she looks very bad. No wonder. Ay, it is but too true. He is to be married very soon—a good-for-nothing fellow! I have no patience with him. Mrs. Taylor told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed it; and I was almost ready to sink as it was. Well, said I, all I can say is, that if this be true, he has used ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
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... you two, keeping the remembrance of a good-for-nothing brother all these years and training up for me such a son as this is, and set that against my deserts, I'm not sure how I could bear the shame of it if the thankfulness were not ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
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... lad knew he had the whip-hand of the poor woman, and the taller he grew the more the lazy good-for-nothing used it. Enlistment was his trump card, and he went to the length of buying a drill-book and practising the motions in odd corners of the garden, but always so that his aunt should catch him at it. If she was slow in catching him, the young villain would draw attention ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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... de Lora; "but good-for-nothing as I may be, I cannot help admiring a woman who is capable, as that one was, of living by the side of a studio, under a painter's roof, and never coming down, nor seeing the world, nor dipping her feet in the ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
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... to death, and feeling like a silly little good-for-nothing besides. The trouble is, it's too little bother. James and I have had a long talk. Housekeeping will be reduced to its elements with him, but at least I shall begin to feel really grown up when I pore over monthly bills and 'slips' and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
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... "Why, it's that good-for-nothing brother of Mary Ogden. He's the blacksmith's boy. I'm afraid he will be hurt," remarked Miss Glidden, kindly and benevolently; but all the rest shouted ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
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... good-for-nothing!" cried the old woman, full of wrath at the sight of the shoeless boy. "What have you done with your shoe, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
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... roads and fields, lending a hand to the farmers, sleeping in stables and garrets, or oftener in the open air; sometimes charitably sheltered in a kind man's barn, and perhaps—oh bliss!—honestly employed with him for a week or two; at others rudely repulsed as a good-for-nothing and vagabond. Vagabond! That truly was his profession now. He forgot the charms of a fixed abode. He came to like his gypsy freedom, the open air and complete independence. He laughed at his misery, provided ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
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... a woman's own fault if she had a lover, did not escape. I had not my mother to shield me, and nobody had anything to do, so it was the universal fashion; and M. de Lamont thought proper to pursue me. I knew he was dissipated and good-for-nothing, and I showed the coldest indifference; but that only gave him the opportunity of talking of my cruelty, and he even persuaded Mademoiselle to assure me ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... feeling of remorse took possession of her. Perhaps it was her fault! Perhaps, if instead of wasting time and thoughts upon good-for-nothing Frieda Hammer, she had helped Alice in her studies, she might now be a Scout! And yet Marjorie was sincere enough with herself to know that she did not, even now, care so much about Alice or her success, as she did about Frieda. She realized, too, that although a week had gone by, ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
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... his five good-for-nothing sons out into the world for one year to learn a craft. They return at the appointed time. During the year the eldest son has learned thieving; the second has learned boat-building; the third, how to ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
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... was small, quite small, 'tis true, But John could bring no more; The woman in a rage it threw,— She stamped upon the floor. (f.) 'No supper you shall have to-night; So go along to bed, You good-for-nothing, ugly fright, You little stupid-head!'" Said Edward: "I would never go; She wouldn't dare ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
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... thought came which roused him completely—though only to a deeper sense of trouble. "However am I going to break the news to mother," he groaned. "Oh, my! but it'll upset her something cruel—and that lazy, good-for-nothing fellow that she could never abide, have brought ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
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... "Give me my cloak; I will fetch some more apples myself, or else that good-for-nothing wretch will eat them all on the way. I shall be able to find the mountain and the tree. The shepherds may cry 'Stop,' but I shall not leave go till I have ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
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