"Hard knocks" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two boys. The quitclaim deed, however, had been destroyed, and there was no fear that Professor Borrodaile would again fall into Heppner's trap. Frank had counted upon this, and had even figured that he would have to take a few hard knocks in bringing ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... "We are in for hard knocks to-day, if appearances go for anything," Blackett said quietly to George, as their regiment prepared, with the other cavalry, to open ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... the lad left his job in the cook tent, never to return to it. After many hard knocks and some heavy falls he succeeded in so mastering the act that he was able to go through with it without great risk of serious injury to himself. The educated mule and the boy became a feature of the Sparling ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Hercules they tell us of. He fell upon us with such fury that in one instant he had knocked Azolan and Basque down into the gutter. They fell under his blows like pasteboard puppets—yet they are both strong men, and used to hard knocks. Labriche was tripped up and cleverly thrown by another actor, and fell with such force that he was completely stunned; the back of his head has found out that the stones of Poitiers pavements are harder than it ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not enow quarters to go round. But don't you—none o' you—think as you own th' whole orange or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without hard knocks." What children learns from children,' she says, 'is that there's no sense in grabbin' at th' whole orange—peel an' all. If you do you'll likely not get even th' pips, an' them's too bitter ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the easiest thing in the world to put a claim through," said Farquhar. "It means plenty of hard knocks and hard work and anxiety. Do ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of that. If Miller goes to Lima, it's a proof there are hard knocks about. And high time too! According to the talk, the war should have been ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... approaching the village of Great Barrington, on the road from Sheffield. He wore the buff and blue uniform of a captain in the late Continental army, and strapped to the saddle was a steel hilted sword which had apparently experienced a good many hard knocks. The lack of any other baggage to speak of, as well as the frayed and stained condition of his uniform, indicated that however rich the rider might be in glory, he was tolerably destitute of more palpable forms ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... and the instinct in him to play the game of life was strong. Environment had determined what form that game should take. He was born on an Iowa farm, and his father had emigrated to eastern Oregon, in which mining country Elam's boyhood was lived. He had known nothing but hard knocks for big stakes. Pluck and endurance counted in the game, but the great god Chance dealt the cards. Honest work for sure but meagre returns did not count. A man played big. He risked everything for everything, and anything less than everything meant that ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the campaign," Malcolm replied, "and have seen some hard knocks given, as you may imagine when I tell you that I was at the ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the S.W., having the field, or loose ice, to the south, and many huge islands to the north. After standing two hours on this tack, the wind very luckily veering to the westward, we tacked, stretched to the north, and soon got clear of the loose ice; but not before we had received several hard knocks from the larger pieces, which, with all our care, we could not avoid. After clearing one danger we still had another to encounter; the weather remained foggy, and many large islands lay in our way; so that we had to luff for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... politics, and especially the higher politics. That means the juggling and wire-pulling of the Chancelleries, and the Front has an uneasy conviction that at the subtleties and craftiness and cunning of the diplomatic game we cannot compete with "The Bosche." Hard knocks and straight fighting the Front does understand, and at that game are cheerfully confident of winning in the ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... I axes yer pardon; but who would have thought of seeing you here? It's funny ye are going from place to place, where the hard knocks are to be had, and no pay ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... which was only disturbed by one vexatious incident. On the day I was to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a great crowd had got there before me, and a quarrel, which degenerated into a general melee, forthwith arose between Greeks, Jews, and Armenians. It was only by dint of hard knocks that the Turkish police made way for me to enter the Holy Place, and to crown the scandal, just as I knelt in deep devotion, before the altar, the organ began to play the Marseillaise. There was yet another episode during my stay at Jerusalem. The Governor of the Province waited upon ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... own part, I felt that it would be useless for me to resist. Tom was strong, and I was wholly in his power—taken by surprise, and at a disadvantage which I could not overcome. I lay still, therefore, and thus saved some hard knocks. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... hurried out of one of the apartments to greet Howard. She was a vivacious brunette of medium height, intelligent looking, with good features and fine teeth. It was not a doll face, but the face of a woman who had experienced early the hard knocks of the world, yet in whom adversity had not succeeded in wholly subduing a naturally buoyant, amiable disposition. There was determination in the lines above her mouth. It was a face full of character, the face of a woman who by sheer ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... years. As an only son, I was promptly and efficiently spoiled for anything else but the station in life which should have been mine—but never has been and, now, never can be. I used to have high aspirations, but promises never kept shattered most of my ideals. The hard knocks of life have made me a fatalist, so now I shrug my shoulders. "Che sara sara." I have had to lead my own life and, all considered, I have enjoyed it. I have crowded into thirty-nine years more sensations than fall to the lot of the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... and a squadron of our regiment has been ordered out. My troop and yours have been selected for the business, and as your Captain is in Europe and the other two troop commanders absent from headquarters, you are to have charge on, this occasion. I command the squadron, so they may look out for hard knocks if we get a chance at them. I will teach the blackguards a lesson they will not forget for some time. They will find no philanthropy or mistaken clemency about me, and to tell you the truth, I would rather have you for my second in command ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... familiar to the reader, seeing that every one must have encountered many such. Fellows of the kind are known as "gay young sparks," and, even in their boyhood and school days, earn a reputation for being bons camarades (though with it all they come in for some hard knocks) for the reason that their faces evince an element of frankness, directness, and enterprise which enables them soon to make friends, and, almost before you have had time to look around, to start addressing you in the second person singular. Yet, while cementing such friendships ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and army movements to the soldier is a constant condition of uncertainty. Uncertainty as to where or when he will eat, sleep, or fight, where or when the end will come. One would almost doubt the certainty of his own existence, except for the hard knocks which ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... silver spoon in his mouth, as we sometimes say, and fortune smiled upon him, he was never spoiled; but on the contrary he early developed a capacity for hard work, and a willingness to take rather than avoid hard knocks. These, as we shall see, insured his success in ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... tone correctly, or sung that phrase to suit yourself, pass it over for the moment with a wave of the hand or a smile; but don't become discouraged. Go right on! I knew a beautiful American in Paris who possessed a lovely voice. But she had a very sensitive nature, which could not endure hard knocks. She began to worry over little failures and disappointments, with the result that in three years her voice was quite gone. We must not give way to disappointments, but conquer them, and keep right along the path we ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... flood, while my horse was swept from under me. I hallooed for some time like a lusty fellow, without getting any answer, which made me begin to think my chance was bad. And, God forgive me for it! I could not help thinking it a sad thing, that after so many fierce frays and hard knocks with the British and tories, I should come at last to be choked like a blind puppy, in this dirty swamp: but God be praised for his good angel, who had brought me through six dangers, and now took me out of the seventh. For, as I was near giving out, a bold young fellow of the ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... that was enough; and that Harry, after all these gymnastics, would go home like a boy that had some sense pounded into him by all these hard knocks. Not at all. Up he sprang, ran to Lightfoot, and jumped for the ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... two hard knocks with the crop and three with the naked fist. Then a lock clicked, heavy bars rumbled, and a chain rattled. Rangsley pushed me through the doorway. A side door opened, and I saw into a lighted room filled with ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... were sitting carousing together below. Each of the Englishmen singled out an opponent, and treated him much in the same way, all this time many of the Spanish officers standing by and not attempting to interfere. The Spanish seamen, finding that nothing was to be obtained but hard knocks, retreated to secure their share of the liquor. Often had Jack and Adair cast their eyes round the horizon in the hopes of discovering a sail by which they might escape from the rock, but none appeared. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... are getting tired of hard knocks in fight; Nym compares their late activity to a somewhat florid 'plain-song' [meaning an extempore descant, as explained above]; Pistol says it is a 'just' plainsong. A 'just' plainsong would mean that the singer had managed his extempore descant 'without ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... a hard pull, Jack!" Cameron's voice was fatherly and soothing. "You might have put your money and your brains in something that would have proved much pleasanter. But the man who takes up the first end of a truth always gets hard knocks: it is the people who come after who find a smooth path. Don't you remember," drawing his wrinkled face into a queer smile, "the shrewd application your New York lady made about the children of Israel? Jack, if the salvation scheme ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... a bitter wind, and seemed to blow to the very heart of a man whose blood, heated but now with rapid riding, was the more sensitive to the chilling blast. Will was a daring fellow, and cared not a jot for hard knocks or sharp blades; but he could not persuade himself to move or walk about, having just that vague expectation of a sudden assault which made it a comfortable thing to have something at his back, even though that something were a gallows-tree. ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... King had a frank, wide-open, genuine quality that disarmed prejudice right at the start. And both were big enough so that they never bemoaned the fact that Fate had sent them to the University of Hard Knocks instead of matriculating them ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... reverses to make success. It takes hard knocks to polish you. This is a book of experiences, ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... replied Mr. Hubbard, returning the cordial grasp of Rodney's hand. "The boys will certainly put you in for something or other. We haven't got down to business yet, but will next week. I suppose that all the military knowledge we get will be by hard knocks, because, being an independent company, we cannot call upon any army officer to drill us. We are studying the tactics all the time, but are in no hurry to get our uniforms until we know whether or not our services are going ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... High School had been met and defeated, by the score of 15 to 6, and the football team had entered on its third week. Clint still hung on, sometimes much discouraged, and took his share of hard knocks and gruelling labour. Tyler having returned to his position on the second, Clint told himself that his last chance to make that team had vanished. But, just when he had about given up hope of advancement, a fortuitous ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... farm, and her unsocial, stubborn disposition. Her unruly ideas lead her into numerous troubles before she changes her mind. Shirley is the baby and pet of six years. As she gets her own way so often, she is badly spoiled and receives many hard knocks before she begins to appreciate the comfort and interest of others. Dr. Hugh is their big brother, who has the care of them in the absence of their parents, and he ranges in their estimation all the way from terrible tyrant to wonderful, necessary brother. There are others who ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... he feels for "Mr. Lamotte's pride," he has given it some pretty hard knocks, but he looks quite innocent, and incapable of any sinister intent, and Mr. Lamotte, after gnawing his lip viciously for a moment and favoring his vis-a-vis with a sharp glance of suspicion, says, with ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and let me teach you in the next two or three years, the world will teach you very harshly later. We none of us can go through life, least of all a woman, doing what we like, knocking against every one as we go along. We get very hard knocks back, and they hurt. We miss, too, the best happiness that life can give. It contains none to equal that of making other people happy. As we treat ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... rude and less and less considerate of her. She still deemed it her right to be honored guest wherever she chose to bestow the privilege of her company, although her self-esteem had had many a quiet dig and a few hard knocks ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... Through the "Richard" tore a road, With his gunners' rammers run Through our ports at every load, Till clear the blue beyond us through our yawning timbers showed. Yet with entrails torn we clung Like the Spartan to our fox, And on deck no coward tongue Wailed the enemy's hard knocks, Nor that all below us trembled like a wreck upon ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... liking the land service in the first place, and having moreover ascertained that the Republic of Buenos Ayres, like that of the United States of America, was not willing to vouchsafe any thing but hard knocks, and no pay, to those who stood by her and supported her, in her fierce struggle for independence, he very deliberately disrobed himself of his regimentals, laid aside his epaulets, tore up his commission, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... did for the two men all that their mothers had not been able to do for them; Poverty taught them thrift and worldly wisdom; Poverty gave them her grand rough education, the lessons which she drives with hard knocks into the heads of great men, who seldom know a happy childhood. Fritz and Wilhelm, being but ordinary men, learned as little as they possibly could in her school; they dodged the blows, shrank from her hard breast and bony arms, and never discovered the good fairy lurking within, ready to yield ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Debt, poor Majesty; nothing else to speak of. His poor Army, fighting never so well in Foreign quarrels,—and generally itself standing the brunt, with the co-partners looking on till it is time to run (as at Roucoux again next season, and at Lauffeld next),—can win nothing but hard knocks and losses. And is defined by mankind,—in phraseology which we have heard again since then!—as having "the heart of a Lion and the head of an Ass." [Old ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of terrible excitement, and each side gave the other many hard knocks. But in the end Harrison was elected by two hundred and thirty-four electoral votes to Van Buren's sixty. As Vice-President John Tyler was chosen. "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" had been ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... than the eye could reach. As we were not above two or three miles from this, and surrounded by loose ice, there was no time to deliberate. We presently wore; got our tacks on board; hauled to the south, and soon got clear; but not before we had received several hard knocks from the loose pieces, which were of the largest sort, and among which we saw a seal. In the afternoon the wind increased in such a manner, as to oblige us to hand the top-sails, and strike top-gallant-yards. At eight o'clock we tacked and stood to the ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... "Stay with me, Dawson—that's a good fellow. Walk around with me awhile. I never went to pieces like this before, and I've had a good many hard knocks. Do you think you could hustle something in the way of a little lunch, old man? I'm afraid my nerve's too far gone to ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... 'I am used to hard knocks,' said I, unbuttoning my tunic, and showing my two musket wounds. Then I bared my ankle also, and showed the place in my eye where the ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of shoes. He grew so fast that his breeches never came down to the tops of his shoes, and, instead of stockings, you could always see "twelve inches of shinbones," sharp, blue, and narrow. He laughed much, was always ready to give and take jokes and hard knocks, had a squeaky, changing voice, a small head, big ears—and was always what Thackeray called "a gentle-man." Such was Abraham Lincoln ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... refrain—in defiance of nautical etiquette—from interfering with his chief officer when the crew was sending up a new topmast, or generally when busy about, what he called, "a heavy job." He was meddlesome with perfect modesty; if he knew a thing or two there was no merit in it. "Hard knocks taught me wisdom, my boy," he used to say, "and you had better take the advice of a man who has been a fool in his time. Have another." And "my boy" as a rule took the cool drink, the advice, and the consequent ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... a town house of the Lords Clifford, ancestors of the Earls of Cumberland, given to them by Edward II., was first let to the students of law in the eighteenth year of King Edward III., at a time when might was too often right, and hard knocks decided legal questions oftener than deed or statute. Harrison the regicide was in youth clerk to an attorney in Clifford's Inn, but when the Civil War broke out he rode off and joined ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... "Constitution" reached New York. Peace had then been declared; but none the less were Stewart and his men feasted and honored. The old frigate had won for herself a name ever to be remembered by the people of the nation, in whose service she had received and dealt so many hard knocks. "Old Ironsides," they called her; and even to-day, when a later war has given to the navy vessels whose sides are literally iron, the "Constitution" still holds her place in the hearts of the American people, who think of her lovingly ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... said: "True it is that we have whiles driven prey in your country, yea, and had some hard knocks therein; but all that was in playing the game of war, and now since we are to fight side by side, we will be paid by our foes and not by our friends; so neither hair nor wool will we have of yours, whatever we may have of the Burgers; and it is like ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... excitement, Page himself came in for his share of hard knocks. Irish meetings "resolved" against the Ambassador as a statesman who "looks on English claims as superior to American rights," and demanded that President Wilson recall him. It has been the fate of practically ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... possessed a fine complexion, a clear eye, and an elastic spirit. She was also well endowed with certain other characteristics of youth; among them ingenuousness, which, if it be a fault, experience is sure to correct; and impulsiveness, which even the school of hard knocks is not always able to eradicate, though it may chasten. To the good points of Graciella, could be added an untroubled conscience, at least up to that period when Colonel French dawned upon her horizon, and for some time thereafter. If ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... thinking of adding 'a slight knowledge of the magneeficent language of the Peninsula' to the rest of her accomplishments, he! he! he! but then there was Cervantes, starving, but straight; he deals us some hard knocks in that second part of his Quixote; then there were some of the writers of the picaresque novels. No; all literary men are not lick-spittles, whether in Italy or Spain, or, indeed, upon the Continent; it is ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... fleet-captain. I had to bear him these bad tidings. Though no stoic, he bore the news as one accustomed to misfortune." It may seem, indeed, that these events, considered individually, were but instances of the hard knocks to be looked for in war, of which every general officer in every campaign must expect to have his share; and this view is undoubtedly true. Nevertheless, occurring in such rapid succession, and all in that part of his extensive command, the blockade, to which at that moment it ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... it can only come to hard knocks at worst. Here goes—I'll send off the scout party to make the fires and choose the men for the out picquets, for no time is ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... always find that of my conscience on earth. They say that in this war you have, not made a bad thing of it. This gives me some assurance that you will leave our poor Uvennes at peace, seeing that there are more hard knocks than pistoles to be got there." The Prince of Conde avenged himself for this stinging reply by taking possession, in Brittany, of all the Duke of Rohan's property, which had been confiscated, and of which the king had made him a present. There were more pistoles to be picked up on the duke's estates ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... nature was a singular one for a boy brought up as he had been. Thrown upon his own resources when he was hardly more than twelve, he had received some pretty hard knocks from the world. But the hardness of these had not cultivated, a like hardness in him ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... upon a barking revolver and shooting as he went. "You're bound to learn all about saddles and what they're made for," he went on. "So long as yuh don't get swell-headed the first time yuh stick on a horse that side-steps a little, or back down from a few hard knocks, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... stand an awful lot of hard knocks," Joe explained later, "and he was always cheerful. You just couldn't knock him out of sorts. He was entertaining, too, and I liked to listen to him, though, on the whole, he wasn't much on the talk. He said that he wanted to get away from politics, ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Parisian luxury and an idle life. She was styled Madame Seraphine, and was for the time being mistress of an incarnate rheumatism in the shape of a peer of France, who gave her fifty louis a month, which she shared with a counter-jumper who gave her nothing but hard knocks. Rodolphe had pleased her, she hoped that he would not think of giving her anything, and took him ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... her had suddenly become the seriousness of it. In one night she had been robbed of all the buoyant optimism of youth. As yet she had failed to achieve the smile of courage under the buffet, just as she had never yet discovered that the real spirit of life is to achieve hard knocks with the same ready smile which should accompany acts ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... get on. Keep working. And work with all your might. How wise the Bible is: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." And keep on doing it—persist—persist—persist. Again the Bible: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings." Do not fear hard knocks. They are no sign that you will not finally win the battle. Indeed, ability to endure in silence is one of the best evidences that you will ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... hazel which they kept handy in the shop, in case of bruises while working. But he did not think it good policy to disturb the entire bunch again in order to relieve the slight pain of Elephant who must sooner or later grow used to hard knocks, if he ever ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... not ended yet, Felicia," my father remarked; "and it will take more than a few hard knocks ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... not been very often attacked," the merchant replied. "There is little to be got from them but hard knocks. The country is not fertile, the cold is too great, and they have only the necessities of life. Except for slaves, and for sacrifice to the gods, there is nothing to be gained by ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... by Major-General Webb gave and received about as hard knocks as any that were delivered in that action, in which Mr. Esmond had the fortune to serve at the head of his own company in his regiment, under the command of their own colonel as major-general; and it was his good luck to bring the regiment out of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... get on that bit. Maybe I'm just a country boy but I'm as smart as the next man. Just because some of you eggheads spend half your life in college don't mean you've got any monopoly on good common sense. I went to the school of hard knocks, understand, and I got plenty of diplomas to prove it. Take it easy ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... fellow. And how my heart bled for some poor Islanders whom he had on board! They knew not a word of English, and no one in the vessel knew a sound of their language. They were made to work, and to understand what was expected of them, only by hard knocks and blows, being pushed and pulled hither and thither. They were kept quite naked on the voyage up; but, when nearing Sydney, each received two yards of calico to be twisted as a kilt around his loins. A most pathetic spectacle it was to watch these poor Natives,—when they ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... first, but just good enough; the boy who does not cry when he gets hurt, and goes into all the dangerous games there are going, and goes in to win; the boy who loves his girl with the same earnestness that he plays football, and who takes the hard knocks of work and play until he becomes hardened to anything that may come to him in after life; the boy who will investigate everything in the way of machinery, even if he gets his fingers pinched, and learns how to make the machine that pinched him; the boy who, by study, experience, and mixing up with ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... Davy Jones, who could take hard knocks without any whimper; "but mother's darling boy ain't home right now. A true scout must learn to sleep in his blanket alone. An old boot will do for a pillow; and he won't ever want to be rocked to sleep either. The ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... a few months older than this boy when he had run away to war, but he had not left anyone behind who would worry about him. And Alexander Mattock's cold discipline had tempered his grandson into someone far more able to take hard knocks than Boyd Barrett might be for years to come. Drew had met those knocks, thick and fast, enduring them as ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Devar is a fair fighter," he said. "He gives and takes hard knocks with perfect good humor. But, may I inquire how you come to figure in a matter which, if I understand aright a message received from Mr. Steingall, concerns persons with whom you ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... young man of very little professional experience, but of high court influence; while the second had a captain who, like old Parker, had worked his way up to his present station, through great difficulties, and by dint of hard knocks, and harder work. Unfortunately the first ranked, and the humble capitaine de fregate, placed by accident in command of a ship of the line, did not dare to desert a capitaine de vaisseau, who had ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... been brought up in the School of Hard Knocks, but they wanted Bertrand and Isabel to go through Life ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... was heard just as George was beginning to try the effect of his eloquence. Panic and scattering flight at once followed, not, however, before some dozen or so of the fugitives had recovered what little sense they ever had by virtue of sundry hard knocks on their skulls, and a dozen more or so had been captured. By twelve o'clock Cowfold was quiet ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... fundamental than environment, and therein lies the solace of the other fellow. Putting aside all odious comparisons and limiting myself to a view of the regular army man as I know him, I can simply say that in the eight months during which I underwent in his company hard knocks and privations without number I could not have found a more truly satisfactory comrade and friend. He doesn't, on the average, know much about books; nor did he ever hear of the Etruscan Inscriptions or the Pyramidal Policy of the ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... hatred still often merit his good opinion for their bravery and fighting qualities, but upon raw Eastern recruits and West-Point fledglings he looks with mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods by many hard knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity toward those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to this may be a lurking jealousy—which, however, would be stoutly disclaimed—because the blue ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... polishing. One bow is to me much like another, though my father holds that there are rare differences between them; but it is a nobler craft to work on iron, and next to using arms the most pleasant thing surely is to make them. One can fancy what good blows the sword will give and what hard knocks the armour will turn aside; but some day, Master Geoffrey, when I have served my time, I mean to follow the army. There is always work there for armourers to do, and sometimes at a pinch they may even ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... moments of confidential intercourse laugh in their joint sleeves at the antipathies of the public. In the present instance it was alleged that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable B. had come to some truce together, and had ceased for a while to hit each other hard knocks. Such a truce was supposed to be a feather in the cap of the Honourable B., as he was leader of a poor party of no more than twenty; and the Right Honourable A. had in this matter the whole House at his back. But for the nonce each had come off his high horse, and for the moment ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... in the bottom, ran a little stream; the ground, on either side, in our immediate front, was swampy, and thickly covered with low swamp growth. That soft ground saved us a good many hard knocks we had plenty as it was! Behind us, our cleared ground ran back, very gently sloping, almost level, some thirty or forty yards, and then, the hill fell sharply down, some twenty yards to the little brook, which ran along the hollow! This sharp bank, facing away from the enemy, and this stream, ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... to see in it a harm, but I never could, and I probably never will. I would to God men kept young for a greater length of time. Never since my school-boy days have I loved so well as now the hilarities of life. What if we have felt heavy burdens, and suffered a multitude of hard knocks, is it any reason why we should stand in the path of those who, unstung by life's misfortunes, are exhilarated ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... I think I'll toddle along home. I am tired, I guess. I ought to be; I've had nothing but hard knocks all day." ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... want to gloss things over for you. It's the worst thing in the world for a young fellow just starting out to have a rosy view of the business world, which is composed of steady work and hard knocks, about equally mixed. You've got too much brains to work altogether with your hands; and one must find out what he is best suited to. How would you like to get into ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... good style and short order—the other b'hoys, with that love of fair play which honorably distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race all over the world, remaining impartial spectators of the fight. Travis had never equalled this feat, but he had seen a good deal of low life and hard knocks on the sly, proper and fashionable as he always appeared ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... not to be a flower-strewn journey of tinselled prince to embowered princess. Before our return to Styria, Max would probably receive what he needed to make a man of him—hard knocks and rough blows in the real battle of life. Above all, he would learn to know the people of whom this great world is composed, and would return to Hapsburg Castle full of all sorts of noxious heresies, to the everlasting ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... indifferent communications by land. Critical portions of the territory involved were yet an unimproved wilderness. Experience, the rude but efficient schoolmaster of that large portion of mankind which gains knowledge only by hard knocks, had confirmed through the preceding French wars the inferences of the thoughtful. Therefore, conscious of the great superiority of the British Navy, which, however, had not then attained the unchallenged ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... expected him to make up his mind and there an end, and not fret himself into a pother and Mr. JOHN FOSTER'S story into a most inartistic anti-climax over such a subtlety. All the same a rattling good tale, full of hard knocks as well as bright eyes, and with more than a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various |
