"Imbecile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Borneo begins to lose his zest for it and to answer snappishly and sarcastically. An infinite supply of courtesy would, of course, be a priceless asset to him, but does not this work both ways? What right have people to bother other people with perfectly foolish and imbecile questions? Is there any one who cannot sympathize with a "sucker-sore" attendant? And with the people who are stationed about for the purpose of answering questions almost anywhere? There are not many of us who at one time and another have not had the feeling that we were on the wrong train even ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... stellar guile, undisturbed by inter-planetary prowlings and invasions. The only trouble is that a chemist's analysis, which seems so final and authoritative to some minds, is no more nearly absolute than is identification by a child or description by an imbecile— ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... they rested on her would have in them no sign of recognition, and the lips which spoke her name so lovingly utter only unmeaning words? It was terrible to contemplate, and Bessie felt she would rather see him dead than an imbecile. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... Emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat. It is like being up in a balloon. Lionising Englishmen and Germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... week later).... "What say you of Maupertuis dying between Two Capuchins! He was ill, this long while, of a repletion of pride; but I had not reckoned him either a hypocrite or an imbecile. I don't advise you ever to go and fill his place at Berlin; you would repent that. I am Astolpho warning Roger (Ruggiero) not to trust himself to the Enchantress Alcina; but Roger was unadvisable." [Ib. lxxviii. 197 ("Delices, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hoarse voice breaking. "What! A half-breed aspire to a Cortez!" She forgot her husband's separateness with true Californian pride. "My daughter and the son of an Indian! Holy God! And she has dared!—she has dared! The little imbecile! The little—But," and she gave a furious laugh, "she will not ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... partridge. By the Body and the Blood, by the Censer and the Seal, by the Book and the Sword, by the Rag and the Gold, by the Sound and the Colour, if thou does but return once into that hovel of elegies where eunuchs find ugly women for imbecile sultans, I'll curse thee; I'll rave at thee; I'll make thee fast from roguery ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... "He's an imbecile, and why Hector has employed him all these years—why he trusts him so implicitly, I'm sure I am at a loss to ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... sternly; "your folly is unseasonable. Sir and madam," he said, turning to his guests, "this old man, and a yet older and more imbecile female domestic, form my whole retinue. Our means of refreshing you are more scanty than even so miserable a retinue, and a dwelling so dilapidated, might seem to promise you; but, such as they may chance to be, you ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... extensive, domains. He needed them all to ensure the success of his far-reaching schemes. His eldest grandson, Charles, was heir not only to Castile and Aragon, Naples and the Indies, which were to come to him from his mother, Ferdinand's imbecile daughter, Juana, but to Burgundy and Austria, the lands of his father, Philip, and of Philip's father, the Emperor Maximilian. This did not satisfy Ferdinand's grasping ambition; he sought to carve out for his second grandson, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... inconceivable limpness in having allowed things to go their way—above all in trusting Godfrey with the St. Neots cheque. On this moment of painful lucidity followed blind rage. Why, what a grovelling imbecile was this fellow! To plunge into wild speculation, on the word of some City shark, with money not his own! But could one credit the story? Was it not more likely that Sherwood had got involved in some cunning thievery which he durst not avow? Perhaps he was a mere liar and ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... brother, who became silly and enfeebled in intellect by the loss of his child, was prevailed on by Miss Goodwin and her family to adopt her as his daughter, and by a series of the most artful and selfish manoeuvres they succeeded in getting the poor imbecile and besotted old man to make a will in her favor; and the consequence was that he left her twelve hundred a year, both to her and her issue, should she marry and have any; but in case she should have no issue, then, after ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Abbey, but it was resolved that the following inscription should be placed on the ruins at Westminster:—"To the lasting disgrace of the English Nation, this Building, together with the other beautiful and interesting parts of London, was ruined, for the sake of some impossible and imbecile schemes, by an assemblage of the most Despicable Dolts ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... who met Edward reeling by the roadside, was sometimes startled to hear the fragments of classical lore, or wild bursts of half-remembered poetry, mixing strangely with the imbecile merriment of intoxication. But when he stopped to gaze, there was no further mark on his face or in his eye by which he could be distinguished from ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... edifices so ruinous and so old that their exact use in other days is not now known, are all that remain of the magnum emporium, except some lines of moldering wall that wander along the canals, and through pastures and vineyards, in the last imbecile stages of dilapidation and decay. There is a lofty bell-tower, also, from which, no doubt, the Torcellani used to descry afar off the devouring hordes of the barbarians on the main-land, and prepare for defense. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... revenge did not stop at that. Yesterday he played a hard joke on me. He not only confiscated a package that a Tagalo [5] brought with him, but instead of directing him to the imbecile's department, he took him where we all were. The poor Tagalo carried with him a large collection of little books written by you, which were given him by his Priest, who told him they represented so much indulgency for his next life. As soon as the Indian had arrived everyone Up There knew he ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... 'You fool! You imbecile!' Mr. Pomeroy roared, as he shook him with all his strength. 'The carriage is at the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... no miracles nor prophecies to enforce the conviction that a long procession of disasters was steadily advancing. With France rent asunder by internal convulsions, with its imbecile king not even capable of commanding a petty faction among his own subjects, with Spain the dark cause of unnumbered evils, holding Italy in its grasp, firmly allied with the Pope, already having reduced and nearly ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... have been such an imbecile as to trust the fellow when his very name, Archidemides, fairly bawled out that I'd be damned easy, if I did trust ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... imbecile reply did not trouble Johnny. He had ears now only for the superior intellect ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... this moment, and now is the crisis of my fate. All my future depends upon it, whether for weal or woe. Lady Chetwynde, do not call it nonsense—do not underrate its importance. Do not, I implore you, underrate me. Thus far you have tacitly assumed that I am a feeble and almost imbecile character. It is true that my abject devotion to you has forced me to give a blind obedience to all your wishes. But mark this well, Lady Chetwynde, such obedience itself involved some of the highest qualities ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... said, in the imbecile voice of a man in love, "why do you tremble so when I am here to protect you? Don't you love ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... half-indignant, half-amused, helpless sort of way; but always as if it were something that did not directly concern them. It was during some such nine days' wonder that the title of 'The Forty Thieves' was bestowed on the members of the Council by their semi-imbecile constituents, who, not possessing sufficient intelligence to devise means of punishing the culprits, affected to regard the manoeuvres of the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... tops, etc. look forward to the cookdom, as the cardinals look to the popedom; and really there is some analogy between them, for neither are preferred from any especial fitness for the office. A cardinal is made pope because he is old, infirm, and imbecile,—our friend Caboose was made cook because he had been Lord Nelson's coxswain, was a drunken rascal, and had a wooden leg; for, as to his gastronomical qualifications, he knew no more of the science than just sufficient ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... reviews of Hours of Idleness are of little interest. The Monthly and the Critical both praised the book; the Literary Panorama, III, p. 273, said the author was no imbecile, but an ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... that the imbecile Duke of Hereward, being well pleased with his son's marriage, and imagining himself still to be the master of Lone and of a princely revenue, went to Messrs. Dazzle and Sparkle, and ordered a splendid set of diamonds ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... for a collegian! Ingrate! good-for-nothing! vagabond! I began to think you were not coming. Where have you been, imbecile? How dare you delay, as if you had no interest in the matter, when the salt of the earth is melting for you, and the sum of beauty ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as more fantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such an imbecile vow. What good can it ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... conquered himself at last; but I fear that his health was impaired by his few mad outbursts. Charles Lamb, who is dear to us all, reduced himself to a pitiable state by giving way to outbreaks of alcoholic craving. When Carlyle saw him, the unhappy essayist was semi-imbecile from the effects of drink; and the savage Scotsman wrote some cruel words which will unfortunately cleave to Lamb's cherished memory for long. Lamb fought against his failing; he suffered agonies ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... another term as President—which every other historian and biographer from Hildreth to Sydney Howard Gay has pronounced, and which has become a stock historical convention; holds Jackson's campaign ending at New Orleans an imbecile undertaking redeemed only by an act of instinctive pugnacity at the end; gives Scott and Jacob Brown the honor they have never before received in fair measure; and in many other points redistributes praise and blame with entire independence, and with curious effect on many popular ideas. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the Prelates had been insulted and threatened in the streets of London. The vital question was, how were we to keep the Church from being liberalized? there was such apathy on the subject in some quarters, such imbecile alarm in others; the true principles of Churchmanship seemed so radically decayed, and there was such distraction in the councils of the Clergy. Blomfield, the Bishop of London of the day, an active and open-hearted man, had been for years engaged in diluting the high ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the good of their country, they have disdained too much the advice of wise counsillors. With eyes fixed upon their established purpose, they trample under foot every obstacle; and every man who differs from their opinion is but a traitor or an imbecile: hence their lack of moderation, tact and prudence, and their excess of obstinacy and violence. To select one example among a thousand, what marvellous results would have been attained by an entente cordiale between two men ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... snapped out harshly—"it is your own fault, not mine!... Like the rest of your imbecile nation you poke your nose where it has no business! And I—" He ceased speaking, realizing that ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... ennui, as to put the final and eternal welfare of his soul at issue on the throw of a stone. La Harpe, no correct writer, nor sound critic, affirms, that Rousseau undertook to decide the question of a Superintending Providence by throwing stones at a tree. That would have been not merely an imbecile but a blasphemous act. As the case stood, Jean Jacques must be acquitted of any charge worse than that of excessive and even ridiculous weakness. "Je m'en vais," he says to himself, "je m'en vais jeter cette pierre contre l'arbre qui est vis-a-vis de moi: si ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... "Imbecile," retorted his wife. "It has been a good year; we bought the wine cheap, we sell it dear, without counting what we get for nothing from the carters; we buy a cow with our earnings, and where is ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... slightest effect in restoring peace to the minds of unscientific Frenchmen. M. Lalande's study was crowded with anxious persons who came to inquire about his memoir. Certain devout folk, 'as ignorant as they were imbecile,' says a contemporary journal, begged the Archbishop of Paris to appoint forty hours' prayer to avert the danger and prevent the terrible deluge. For this was the particular form most men agreed that the danger would take. ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... its fleets the terror of the Mediterranean; but the year before he died his pashas had failed disastrously in their attempt on Malta, and his successor, Selim II (whom Ottoman historians surname "the Drunkard"), was reported to be a half-imbecile wretch, devoid of either intelligence or enterprise. So Europe breathed more freely. But while the "Drunkard" idled in his seraglio by the Golden Horn, the old statesmen, generals, and admirals, whom Suleiman had formed, were still living, and Europe ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... shall be found dreaming dreams just as impossible and childish as those I am dreaming now. I shall be dreaming of some lovely Maria who loves me, the toothless old man, as she might love a Mazeppa; of some imbecile son who, through some extraordinary chance, has suddenly become a minister of state; of my suddenly receiving a windfall of a million of roubles. I am sure that there exists no human being, no human age, to whom or ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... thing for which she had suffered so many lessons; for which she had sat feeling like a mean-spirited imbecile with Sissy's impertinent finger under her wrist, while all outdoors was calling to her; for which she had forborne often and often during the week, only to be more thoroughly bullied on Saturdays. Yet she tore it across and recklessly trampled it underfoot. Then with her hands over her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... the next forty-eight hours Luigi was taken out and interrogated. After that, a gibbering imbecile, he went to live in Bughouse Alley. He has a strong constitution. His shoulders are broad, his nostrils wide, his chest is deep, his blood is pure; he will continue to gibber in Bughouse Alley long after I have swung off and escaped the torment of the penitentiaries ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... The emotions with which they dealt were universal emotions, emotions of the morning of existence, the springtide joy and the springtide terror. Every one of us as a boy or girl has had some midnight dream of nameless obstacle and unutterable menace, in which there was, under whatever imbecile forms, all the deadly stress and panic of 'Wuthering Heights.' Every one of us has had a day-dream of our own potential destiny not one atom more reasonable than 'Jane Eyre.' And the truth which the Brontes came to tell us is the truth that many waters cannot ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... polar regions, went down to talk to him. At first Rovinski refused to make any answers to the questions put to him, but at last, apparently enraged by the imputation that he must be a weak-minded, almost idiotic, man to behave himself in such an imbecile fashion, he suddenly ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... eminent men have been found to be 8 to 12 ounces above the average weight, but there are notable exceptions. The brains of idiots are small; indeed, any weight under a certain size, about 30 ounces, seems to be invariably associated with an imbecile mind. ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... could be more untrue. The fact is that Nietzsche had no interest whatever in the delusions of the plain people—that is, intrinsically. It seemed to him of small moment what they believed, so long as it was safely imbecile. What he stood against was not their beliefs, but the elevation of those beliefs, by any sort of democratic process, to the dignity of a state philosophy—what he feared most was the pollution and crippling ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... prosecutions for such imaginary crimes. But the effect of perpetuating the silly and superstitious tales that have survived this mortal blow, is exactly opposite. It only serves to keep alive the lingering folly of imbecile minds, and still to feed with pestiferous clouds the thoughts of the ignorant. Let us rather hail with heart-felt gladness the light which has, though late, broken in upon us, and weep over the calamity of our forefathers, who, in addition to the ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... overshadowing of that night whose fitful meteoric fires only herald the descent of a superficial fame into lasting oblivion, the imbecile and unavailing resistance which is made against the doom must often excite our pity for the pampered child of market-gilded popularity;" and as "it is not with such feelings that we behold the dark thraldom and long-suffering of true intellectual strength," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... circumstances, the fiat of fate, a part of my life's lot and—above all—a matter about whose origin no question must ever be asked, for whose painful sequence no murmur ever uttered. Of course I did not blame myself for suffering: I thank God I had a truer sense of justice than to fall into any imbecile extravagance of self-accusation; and as to blaming others for silence, in my reason I well knew them blameless, and in my heart acknowledged them so: but it was a rough and heavy road to travel, and I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... gently as he might, but she resisted like a tigress at bay, and before he could drag her aside they heard the iron-barred door of the elevator glide open and clang shut. And there they stood in the strange place, the old man staggered with the realization of the future, the old woman imbecile with fear. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... manifestations are made by a very large number of jurymen with sufficient clearness to make it possible to count the votes and predict the verdict. I remember vividly in this regard a case that occurred many years ago. Three men, a peasant and his two sons, were accused of having killed an imbecile who was supposed to have boarded in their house. The jury unanimously declared them guiltless, really because of failure, in spite of much effort, to find the body of the victim. Later a new witness appeared, the case was taken up again, and about ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... I am trying of two evils to choose the least. I should like to have my uncle—and Helen here immensely. But if the visit wasn't a success I should be proportionately disappointed and vexed. So is it worth the risk? Disappointments are sufficiently abundant anyhow. Isn't it slightly imbecile to run a wholly gratuitous risk of adding ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... against the future, party on party, dances on suppers and suppers on plays; to dine every evening at some place where they hadn't dined before; to meet lots of nice amusing people with demobilised minds who wouldn't talk to him about the war; to let himself go in bursts of exquisitely imbecile laughter; never to be quiet for an hour, never to be alone with himself, never to be ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... the sinking spirit of this great minister. He died on the 23rd of January, 1806, and was succeeded in the government by Mr. Fox, the same statesman who had, throughout every variety of fortune, arraigned his conduct of the war as imbecile and absurd, and who all along professed his belief that in the original quarrel between Great Britain and revolutionised France, the blame lay with his own country, and above all ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the autumn.... Yes, my dear sir, I at once accept your honourable proposals with pleasure. Indeed, for myself, I desire nothing better! I will go on turning sour; I will go on giving music lessons and growing imbecile in this hole of a town.... You will fiddle away, turn women's heads, travel, be rich, famous and happy—and every four or six weeks I may hope to be taken for one night to some shabby room where you entertain your women of the street.... ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... recent letter to the London Medium that "Spiritualism in England is not only on the increase, but has already take too deep and earnest a hold of the public heart, up here in the north, to be uprooted by imbecile antagonism, or even marred by the petty shams of imposture. In places where I have been told it was recently difficult to collect together a score of people to listen to spiritual lectures, the largest halls ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... all the voice of Lady Georgina observing, tartly, 'Why the idiots can't make braces to fit one at first passes my comprehension. But, there, my dear; the people who manufacture them are a set of born fools, and what can you expect from an imbecile?' Mr. Ashurst was Lady Georgina, veneered with a thin layer of ingratiating urbanity. Lady Georgina was clever, and therefore acrimonious. Mr. Ashurst was astute, ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... can't stand that!" exclaimed Irene. "It's too imbecile. It really is what our slangy friend calls 'rot,' and very dry rot. Have you read ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... of that," he said drearily. "I was talking of you. You're getting old, for a woman, Clarice, and when you're worried, as you are to-day, you show it; though how an imbecile like Hartley got at you to the extent of making you worried, ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... and the imbecile cowardice of his subjects had enabled the Fellatahs to establish themselves in Yarriba, to entrench themselves in its fortified towns, and to obtain the recognition of their independence, until they became sufficiently ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... is youth which requires such things—and takes them. That is all imbecile London gossip. No, he would not run after her if she ran away. He is a proud man and he knows he would be laughed at. And he could not get her back from a young man—who ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Badenhorst; old father; old mother; bedridden 15-year-old boy; water head; simple; old mother feeds it mouth to mouth[14]; "Die kind, leeraart, het ik nou al lang afgege aan de Heere Jesus!" (This child, Pastor, I have given to the Lord Jesus long ago.") She dotes on this imbecile, poor mother. Such a simple, homely, gladsome, believing old heart. "Ik ben velen een wonder geweest" ("I am a wonder unto many"); me certainly; daughter with sick girlie; "De Heere het haar ver ons terug gege" ("The Lord has given her back to us"); ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... deadly sick, He would lie in a swoon for hours, while thick Phantasmagoria crowded his brain, And his body shrieked in the clutch of pain. The crisis passed, he would wake and smile With a vacant joy, half-imbecile And quite confused, not being certain Why he was suffering; a curtain Fallen over the tortured mind beguiled His sorrow. Like a little child He would play with his watches and gems, with glee Calling the Shadow to look and see How the spots on the ceiling danced ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... himself; "incredible as it may seem, he does. I have Austen Vane to thank for still another favour—he is responsible for Hilary's condition to-day. He has broken him down—he has made him an imbecile. The convention is scarcely thirty-six hours off, and Hilary is about as fit to handle it as—as Eben Fitch. Hilary, who never failed me in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... If you object, let us consider that nothing has been said. But I don't fancy that the women are so much in question as a poor devil that Lucien pilloried in his newspaper; he is begging for mercy and peace. The Baron du Chatelet is imbecile enough to take the thing seriously. The Marquise d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Mme. de Montcornet's set have taken up the Heron's cause; and I have undertaken to reconcile Petrarch and his Laura—Mme. de Bargeton ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... o'clock, and we were off full cry upon the trail at once. First we drove to Brixton Workhoused Infirmary, where we found that it was indeed the truth that a charitable couple had called some days before, that they had claimed an imbecile old woman as a former servant, and that they had obtained permission to take her away with them. No surprise was expressed at the news that she had ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wiping the sweat from his forehead. He wondered for an instant if she really looked troubled, or if he only imagined it. There was no doubt about how Vincent looked, as though he thought Mr. Welles, exulting over a blow with a mattock, an old imbecile in his dotage. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... unfortunate beings, whom she appears to have selected for her victims, still death, is a door that will surely be opened to them—that will deliver them from their misfortunes, although in their puny, imbecile, wayward judgment, they may be ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... reader, as he finished perusing this letter. "The imbecile! Was there ever such a fool born ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... one column, for years of devotion. Now Edward, of course, was going to relate his adventure; but the journal told it so gloriously, he hesitated to say, "I did all that." He just sat and stared, and wondered, and blushed, and grinned like an imbecile. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Macpherson and in occasional passages of his pamphlets, we see that he could be pithy enough when he chose to descend from his Latinized abstractions to good concrete English; but that is only when he becomes excited. His face when in repose, we are told, appeared to be almost imbecile; he was constantly sunk in reveries, from which he was only roused by a challenge to conversation. In his writings, for the most part, we seem to be listening to the reverie rather than the talk; we are overhearing a soliloquy in his study, not a vigorous ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... forehead and tresses of Angela, and says gently, "I never wish to recall these cruel memories. I should have said nothing to you, assured myself that there is no danger in bringing this imbecile to you as a plaything, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... him by comparison. Language has been tortured to find epithets sufficiently strong to paint him in description. Imagination has been exhausted in her efforts to deck him with revolting and inhuman attributes. Tyrant, despot, usurper; destroyer of the liberties of his country; rash, ignorant, imbecile; endangering the public peace with all foreign nations; destroying domestic prosperity at home; ruining all industry, all commerce, all manufactures; annihilating confidence between man and man; delivering up the streets of populous cities to grass ...
— Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging Resolution • Thomas Hart Benton
... imbecile!" Or was it the apparition of her father, up at the Kachime entrance, that inspired ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... reached my lodgings. I was as soft-hearted and imbecile as a student at his first love-tryst. I did not wish to degrade this meeting to the level of a commonplace bachelor adventure. I wanted to keep the bloom and the ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... it was usually, without doubt, of the kind known as senile dementia. This was so in the case of the mother of Bacon, the most distinguished person in the list of those with an insane parent. Charles Lamb's father, we are told, eventually became "imbecile." Turner's mother became insane. The same is recorded of Archbishop Tillotson's mother and of Archbishop Leighton's father. This brief list includes all the parents of British men of genius who are recorded (and not then always very definitely) as having finally died ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... to the yet weak and timid condition of public opinion in Italy—looking to the narrow provincial views which still hamper general society—above all, looking to the limited power of its princes and prelates, and to the imbecile and demoralized characters of its Pio Nonos and Antonellis, we must confess that we see no hope of any immediate political settlement, the attainment of which need make it worth while for Mr. Mazzini to compromise or abandon for a moment his most extreme political opinions. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... all has not been told. A private firm has prevailed upon the imbecile old farmers from the western and interior counties to give them the right to build a private freight railroad through many of the principal streets of the Quaker City. This road will run through several school-house yards, and the time-tables are to be so arranged ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... come here, Dent." Tode turned with a malicious smile from his seat at the instrument board. "You didn't have to come. I take it that you are in love with Lucille, you poor imbecile, and still cherish dreams of winning her. We'll take up ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... passed into his possession, and he could give them away. He established all the town paupers in the doctor's clover. He recalled old Peter Thomas from the poorhouse, and set him at Doctor Prescott's front window in a broadcloth coat. An imbecile pauper by the name of Mindy Toggs he established in undisturbed possession of ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the fifty crowns in the first instance, and write the memoirs. When you have finished them, you will decline to publish them in your aunt's name, imbecile! Madame de Montbauron, with her hooped petticoat, her rank and beauty, rouge and slippers, and her death upon the scaffold, is worth a great deal more than six hundred francs. And then, if the trade will not give your aunt her due, some old adventurer, or some shady countess or other, will be ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the cracked wainscot—like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may speedily reel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... men are no more; their knowledge is deposited in the dead archives of literature; and probably had there been no Gypsies, with them would have died the belief in chiromancy, as is the case with respect to astrology, necromancy, oneirocritica, and the other offspring of imbecile fancy. ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... we did not want an ordinary boatwoman for us five, for we were not very like the rest of the world. We wanted something unexpected, funny, ready for everything, something, in short, which it would be almost impossible to find. We had tried many without success, girls who had held the tiller, imbecile boatwomen who always preferred wine that intoxicates to water which flows and carries the yawls. We kept them for one Sunday, and then got ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... This miserable man, imbecile and drunk with power, outrages in this utterance everything that can be sacred for a man of the modern world. And yet all the Christians, liberals, and cultivated people, far from resenting this outrage, did not even ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... referring to the word 'idiot' in the index, just to get a lead," I said, "I shall begin by saying that you are evidently a hebetudinous imbecile, ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... "Imbecile!" replied his neighbor. "It's Prince Villardo whom we saw last night in the play!" And the alcalde, in the character of giant-slayer, rose accordingly ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Finance, and Foreign Affairs established in independence of the central government, there would remain no link between Hungary and the Hereditary States but the person of a titular, and, for the present time, an imbecile sovereign. Powerless and distracted, Metternich's successors looked in all directions for counsel. The Palatine argued that three courses were open to the Austrian Government. It might endeavour to crush the Hungarian movement by force of arms; for this purpose, however, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... so surprised that he could not hide it. He had expected to see a miserable-looking invalid, with imbecile writ large all over him; instead of whom he was confronted by a dignified, courteous gentleman, whose infirmity was only hinted at by a certain languor of movement ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... and three medical colleges, and a law school; and there are also private and religious educational institutions. Columbus is the location of a state hospital for the insane; state institutes for the education of deaf mutes, blind and imbecile youth; the Ohio penitentiary; county, city and memorial buildings; five opera houses; and a board of trade building. There are five public parks and a United States military post, Fort Columbus. This post, known also as Columbus Barracks, was ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... moment was to lull suspicion to rest; when that had been accomplished, then I might confidently hope to pump my trustful victim of such information as I imperatively required. The ignorant questions of an imbecile will oftentimes be frankly responded to, where a wise man might ask in vain, and my first play was to establish my character as a fool. That I had succeeded ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... argument, ought not to be admitted. Of similes, metaphors, and figures of every kind the same may be affirmed: whatever does not enlighten confuses. There are two extremes, against which we ought equally to guard: not to give a dry skeleton, bones without flesh; nor an imbecile ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and they noticed with astonishment the wonderful change for the better that had taken place in the man. For with the restoration of his mind all the evil lines of his face had been obliterated, as it were, and in the place of the doddering half-imbecile they found a genial, kindly, and distinguished gentleman who, with the utmost hospitality, brought chairs and begged them ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... and an imbecile smile flitted over his ghastly face. "Ah! then, you love her?" asked ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... stamping and the other tripping daintily, who effectually mimic the late partners of the dance in the most heartless manner. Another of these hideous creatures is sitting down, his head covered with a dirty rag, staring, stuttering, and mumbling, like an imbecile. His pantomime is recognized at once as a cruel mimicry of the chief penitent while at prayer, and it is universally pronounced to be a superb performance. To the Koshare nothing is sacred; all things are permitted, so long as they contribute ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Spanish Succession terminated in the peace of Utrecht, and left Philip his kingdom; after an unsuccessful movement to recover Sicily and Sardinia for Spain he joined England and France against the Emperor, and gained the former island for his son Charles III.; he died an imbecile at Madrid (1683-1746). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... his body under Jeremy's arm, and dropping with a flop on to the floor. All these manoeuvres to-day availed him nothing; Jeremy held his neck in a vice, and dug his fingers well into the skin. Hamlet whined, then lay still, and, in the midst of indignant reflections against the imbecile tyrannies of man, fell, ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... in the disastrous Turk Countries; but, though willing enough, was never much of a soldier: as to Neipperg, among his own men especially, the one cry is, He ought to go about his business out of Austrian Armies, as an imbecile and even a traitor. "Is it conceivable that Friedrich could have beaten us, in that manner, except by buying Neipperg in the first place? Neipperg and the generality of them, in that luckless Silesian ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... anybody to get it for him. He just wrote things, things that he thought were adequately imbecile, and shot them into letter-boxes. As to what became of them, Tanqueray had never seen anybody more unsolicitous, more reckless of the ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... head sadly. "I'm afraid I should have said, Mr. Burris, that we did once have one," he admitted. "He was, unfortunately, an imbecile, with a mental age between five and six, as nearly as we were able ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... shall lose our imbecile pupil up-stairs, Ag. I brought a doctor in to see him last night, and he says he ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... it my duty to explain the exact truth to Luttrell. When last, my dear Tedcastle, Molly was invited to meet the Rossmeres, she behaved so badly and flirted so outrageously with his withered lordship, that he became perfectly imbecile toward the close of the entertainment, and his poor old wife was reduced almost to the verge of tears. I blushed for ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... know what I want—without your telling me! You overstep your privileges, Mason! I'm not an imbecile, to be ignored, set aside, overruled! I won't stand it! ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... within the meaning accepted by civilisation—this crusade of light against darkness, of cleanliness against corruption, this battle of normal minds against the diseased, perverted, and filthy ferocity of a people not merely reverted to honest barbarism, but also mentally mutilated, and now morally imbecile and utterly incompetent to understand the basic truths of that civilisation from which they had relapsed, and from which, God willing, they are to be ultimately and definitely ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... conferences with the principal officers under his command, and endeavored to prepare their minds for the revolution which he contemplated by representing to them that neither of the princes who had been proclaimed were fit to reign. John, he said, was almost an imbecile, on account of the numerous and hopeless bodily infirmities to which he was subject. Peter was yet a mere boy; and then, besides, even when he should become a man, he would very likely be subject to the same diseases with his brother. These men would ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... Freddie. He is practically an imbecile and I don't like his face; outside of that he's all right. But you will be glad later that you did not marry him. You are much too real a person. What a wife you will make ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... cultivate or acquire the qualities in which she understood that women are wanting, and when she succeeded she expected to please; but she found Colonel Colquhoun as "peculiar" on the subject as her father had been when she proved that, although of the imbecile sex, she could do arithmetic. Colonel Colquhoun waited a week to snap at her for asking him how he had spent his leave, but he was obliged at last to give up all hope of being questioned; and then he felt himself aggrieved. She certainly ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... differs from that of his predecessors goes on disengaging itself and becoming more and more articulate and cognisable. The same principle of growth that carried his first book beyond the books of previous writers carries his last book beyond his first. And just as the most imbecile production of any literary age gives us sometimes the very clue to comprehension we have sought long and vainly in contemporary masterpieces, so it may be the very weakest of an author's books that, coming in the sequel of many others, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Who comes imbecile to the world mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... they are nevertheless fearfully and wonderfully like each other. They present the same rosy complexions and straw-colored mustachios, the same plump cheeks, vacant eyes and low forehead; and they utter, with the same stolid gravity, the same imbecile small talk. On sofas facing each other sit the two remaining guests, who have not joined the elders at the card-table in another room. They are both men. One of them is drowsy and middle-aged—happy in the possession of large ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... with his foot and thought sourly of the rot he had read about love begetting love. He had not noticed it. It more often begot laughter, and his case was an instance of it. Helene Spenceley laughed at him—he was sure of it—and fool that he was—imbecile—it did not seem to make any difference. There was just one girl for him and always would be—he was like that and ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... country, and not of grave political importance. For the details of both these events, the reader is referred to "A Korean Coup D' Etat," an entertaining article by Perceval Lowell, Atlantic Monthly, November, 1886. This poverty-stricken country, with an imbecile sovereign at the helm of state, and with no organized array, is practically under the control of the Chinese government, though nominally she is independent. Some European powers, who seem to consider that the greatness of a nation is commensurate with ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... Orleans laughed at charges of impiety, libertinism, extravagance, idleness, disgraceful promotions. But the slightest allusion to the charge of poisoning threw him into convulsions. Louis the Fifteenth braved the hatred and contempt of his subjects during many years of the most odious and imbecile misgovernment. But, when a report was spread that he used human blood for his baths, he was almost driven mad by it. Surely Mr Bentham's position "that no man cares for the good opinion of those whom he has ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
