"Raving mad" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grief. And it is not clear to me that it is not all owing to you. At least you have given the finishing lift to the misfortune that was already destroying him. There have been the devil and all to pay between him and squire Forester. The squire is right raving mad with my master, for having outwitted him in the matter of the trial, and saved your life. He swears that you shall be taken up and tried all over again at the next assizes; but my master is resolute, and I believe will carry it his own way. He says indeed that the law will not allow squire ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... of such gall? I've offered 'em money enough to buy a new set of cars and pension the driver for three generations; but that doesn't seem to be what they want. They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a ruling, and build walls between times. Are they all stark, raving mad? One 'ud think I made a profession of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their old Induna from a waytrain? I took the first that came along, and I've been jailed and fined for that ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... wait there until something happens. Something must and will happen. His disease won't stand still. He may go raving mad and kill himself. Or he may attempt to attack us, though that is not likely, and then we must do what we can in self defence. Or help may reach us from somewhere. At the worst we shall only die as we should have died outside. Come, let us be quick, lest he should change ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... sorrow, he continued to exhort us all to patience and reliance on God, desiring us to accept our chastisement like dutiful and thankful children. In this state of misery and wretchedness, several died raving mad, and others in a most loathsome state, or in dreadful pain and agony. None in the ship remained in perfect health, except the captain and one boy; the master also, though oppressed with extreme labour and anxiety, bore up with spirit, so that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... remembered your mother's—it had stayed in his mind—because of the German word Nachtigall being so nearly the same. As he said the word my mind got a frightful twist, and I thought I was mad. I did, indeed, my dearest love—raving mad!" ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... to collect and forward their letters from home as soon as they gave her an address; Marcella did not mention the chief reason for getting away from Sydney now. She had an instinctive feeling that Mrs. King would think she was raving mad to run away into the Bush with ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... "No," he cried with an oath, "that is a lie," and springing up, turned blood-shot eyes upon his companion. "I am mad, Bulchester," he cried, "raving mad. It is all over with ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Chancellorship, I noticed with much satisfaction his remarks on the treatment of insane patients, especially in private mad-houses, which he found was so generally severe, that in case they were but a little deranged, it was sufficient to make them raving mad; and he delivered it as his judgment that kind and conciliating treatment was the best means to promote recovery. The latter part of this opinion I have the satisfaction of asserting has been evidently proved correct in the management of the Retreat, where coercion, though sometimes ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... again met by four Mahometans, he threatened them with a blunderbuss, and was left unmolested. Eventually he was found by friendly natives, and taken by them to a wood, where he lived on roots. Thence he journeyed to Linao, became raving mad, and was sent to Manila, where he died quite frantic, in ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... with such a crew of hell-hounds as I was, had the same common operation upon me as upon other people. I degenerated into stone; I turned first stupid and senseless, then brutish and thoughtless, and at last raving mad as any of them were; and, in short, I became as naturally pleased and easy with the place, as if indeed I had ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... money however practicable it might have been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. He was not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry the Dowager Duchess of Savoy; and, soon afterwards, the widow of the King of Castile, who was raving mad. But he made a ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... strike out faltering accents from your antiquated palate, how much wiser are you than [a child] that builds little houses? To the folly [of love] add bloodshed, and stir the fire with a sword. I ask you, when Marius lately, after he had stabbed Hellas, threw himself down a precipice, was he raving mad? Or will you absolve the man from the imputation of a disturbed mind, and condemn him for the crime, according to your custom, imposing, on things named that have an affinity ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... town as fast as we knew how that day. We tried to go out again at night, but could make no headway against the crowd of wagons, artillery and the retreating army on the roads. It was an utterly demoralized mob. We barely escaped massacre by a regiment of Belleville National Guards, who were mad, raving mad, accusing everybody of incapacity and treason. The next day we went out with a burying-party, and found members of this same National Guard thickly strewn among the vines of Buzenval and Montretout, and we buried them. In their new knap-sacks we found crested note-paper and many such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... There can be nothing like it. It is the earth and sky gone stark and raving mad. The mountains up-twirled, disbodied and inverted, stand on their peaks and throw their bowels to the sky. Their earth is air; their ether blood-red rock engreened. You stand upon their roots and fall into their pinnacles, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... stark, raving mad as you always have been. But I don't care what you say. Kids, come and look at the fox your father ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... of drink and reading. I assure you I am full beyond my capacity as it is; if I do not succeed in quickly unloading my stomach of what you have put into it, there is not a doubt I shall go raving mad under the intoxication of your exuberant verbosity. At first I was inclined to be amused; but there is such a lot of it, and all just alike; I pity you now, poor misguided one, trapped in your endless maze, sick unto death, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... leave of me, Jabour shaking hands with me, and saying, Mā-tăhāfsh, "don't fear." Afterwards had a great many curious visitors of the lower classes, all raving mad to see the Roumee ("Christian"). And amongst the rest, the son of Ouweek! who is a young harmless fellow, and said his father would never hurt a great Christian like me. He begged hard for a piece of sugar, which I gave him. He asked me if his father ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Bowring. "Perhaps I'm hard, too. I'm sorry. You said that you had been mad, I remember—I don't like to think of all you said, but you said that. And I remember thinking that I had been much more mad than you, to have married you, but that I should soon be really mad—raving mad—if I remained your wife. I couldn't. I should have died. Afterwards I thought it would have been better if I had died then. But I lived through it. Then, after the death of my old aunt, I was alone. What was I to do? I was poor ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... good, I'm mad, stark raving mad, To have a Woman young, rich, beautiful, Just on the point of yielding to my Love, Snatcht from my Arms by such a Beast as this; An old ridiculous Buffoon, past Pleasure, Past Love, or any thing that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... human being. He hated me because I tried to stand between her and harm. But he could not get rid of the sight of me. I have a little home where he can't avoid seeing me sometimes. I believe, if I kept always appearing before him, he would go raving mad, he hates me to ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... never; but mark you, this does not commit me to compliance with all your Utopian schemes. If you were raving mad, I should sympathize, but nevertheless I should see that the strait-jacket was brought into requisition. When your generosity train dashes recklessly beyond regulation schedules of safety, I must discharge engineer sympathy, and whistle down ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... man went sheer raving mad from the emotions of his forefathers and from his own. He came to close quarters. He gripped the stick with his two hands and made it speed like a flail. The snake, tumbling in the anguish of final despair, fought, bit, flung ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... quietly to himself, "the boy is not raving mad, so far as I can see. He has every appearance on him of meaning what he says. And this is what comes of the Community of Tadmor, is it? Well, civil and religious liberty is dearly purchased sometimes in the United States—and ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... ANTIOCHUS, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, who captured Jerusalem twice, and defiled God's altar. He died raving mad B.C. 164. Josephus, Antiquities of the ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... negro concerts, and it was this and her beauty which took with the people. She hated the business, but was compelled to sing by her husband, who, I fancy, was a tyrant and a brute. They starred it in the far West mostly, until her health and mind gave way, and she went raving mad on the stage, I believe. He put her in a private asylum in San Francisco. How long she was there I don't know, and she don't know. She was always a little queer, they say, and people predicted she would be crazy some time. Her husband died suddenly ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... sure that something dreadful is going to happen," she continued after a moment's pause. "He will go mad in that horrible prison, raving mad, so that they will have to—to hold him—" she sobbed and then recovered herself by an effort. "Or else—he will fall ill and die, after it—" Here she broke down completely and stopping in the middle of the street began crying bitterly, clutching at Schmidt's arm as though ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... Dolorosa; sometimes both arms hung lax and limp by her side, like those of a heart-broken creature; and sometimes she wildly clutched empty air, like a Leatherstonepaugh enthusiastically inebriated or gone stark, staring, raving mad! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... without restraint; but the blood they preserved with more economy, to cool their parched lips. In a few days, however, their own blood, for lack of cooling food, became so fiery hot as to scald their brain to frenzy. About the tenth day the captain and mate leaped overboard, raving mad; and the day following the two remaining seamen expired in the bottom of the boat, piteously crying to the last for WATER! WATER! God of his mercy forgive me, who have so often drank of that sweet beverage without grateful acknowledgments! Scarcely was this melancholy scene ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die raving mad?" ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... "Go raving mad, sir, so I shoved some more stuff on the fire, and as soon as it began to blaze and crackle there was a bigger hissing than ever, and the serpents all came rushing at me, and I ran for my life and to ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... "flying wedge" were the favorite formations; and the Blue would never forget how, after a series of line plunging, bone-breaking rushes, he had dragged himself over the enemy's goal line with the whole frantic eleven piled on him, while the Blue stands went stark raving mad over the prowess of their champion. That famous goal had won him an undisputed place on the All-American team for that year and the captaincy of his ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... Only a few days later the husband was taken ill, and day by day became worse. The wife was naturally anxious, and when his illness deprived him of his reason, her cup of sorrow seemed full. For three years he was raving mad, and often, when in one of his fits of rage, he would ill-treat his wife. These fits might come on without any warning, day or night, so that she was kept in ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... to the "little dove", the "peerless white flower"! He passed a big hand across his brow. His heart-beats were like the galloping hoofs of a horse, bearing him whither? Gold of her hair, violet of her eyes! Whither? The raving mad poets! Wine seemed running in his blood; he moved ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... procure, as I have said before, the Grand Jury's Presentment against it. But this being now-a-Days the wrongest Way in the World to stifle Books, it made it more known, and encreas'd the Sale of it. This made some hot People raving mad; and now I began to be attack'd with great Fury from all Quarters; but as Nothing has appeared yet, that might not be easily answer'd from The Fable of the Bees it self, or the Vindication I have spoke of before, I have not hitherto ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... biscuits or water; they knew it was all gone. Some gave way under the appalling thought. One of the Spaniards went raving mad, and threw himself into the sea, whence no one had strength to pull him out; the other fell ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... stark raving mad, or the savior of the Indian Empire—perhaps of all Western civilization. Listen. Sir Gregory Hale, whom I know slightly and who honors me, apparently, with a belief that I am the only man in Europe worthy of his confidence, resigned his appointment ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... a belief in self, and a scorn for others that recalls France in the seventeenth century. "Dem Deutschen gehoert die Welt" ("Germany possesses the world") calmly say the prints displayed in the shop windows in Berlin. But when one arrives at this point the mind becomes delirious. All genius is raving mad if it comes to that; but Beethoven's madness concentrated itself in himself, and imagined things for his own enjoyment. The genius of many contemporary German artists is an aggressive thing, and is characterised by its destructive antagonism. The idealist who "possesses the world" is liable to dizziness. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... was still seen passing there, waving its arms in shadowy triumph; so, the next day, there were various goodly stories afloat and astir, coming out of successive mouths, more wondrous at each birth; the simplest form of the story being, that Septimius Felton had at last gone raving mad on the hill-top that he was so fond of haunting; and those who listened to his shrieks said that he was calling to the Devil; and some said that by certain exorcisms he had caused the appearance of a battle in the air, charging squadrons, cannon-flashes, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... self-proclamatory, lacking elevation, save as his love puts wings beneath him for a moment and lifts him, as eagles billow up their young; is weak, and tries to cover weakness up by ranting. We pity, then despise him, then pity him once more, and in sheer charity think him raving mad. Stand Maud's lover alongside King Arthur, and how splendid does King Arthur look! The lover was pessimist and wrong; Arthur was optimist and, in his temper, right. Though hacked at by the careless or vicious swords ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... true chivalry of spirit, Emelene, that the women are too stark raving mad to appreciate. You can't come here, Mr. Evans, to two women to whom womanliness and love of home, thank God, are still uppermost and ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... he interrupted her roughly "Stark, raving mad! You must do something, do you hear? You've got to ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... goaded Orest[^e]s to avenge her insults, and the ambassadors fell on Pyrrhus and murdered him. Hermion[^e], when she saw the dead body of the king borne along, stabbed herself, and Orest[^e]s went raving mad.—Ambrose Philips, The Distressed ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... another body upon being thus set free. And as this seemed to be a view of the case that was worth encouraging, I very gravely told one of the priests that I myself had seen a man all in an instant go raving mad upon slaying one of these creatures and so letting the devil loose from him. As this story was circulated among the crowd I was glad to perceive that the dread of El Sabio ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... said, "that it's extremely difficult to see the best course. Howard has just died, raving mad, for giving way to his impulses; I may die, raving mad, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... for twenty minutes, the annihilator of time and space must camp out under the blue and hunt for his dead among the rubbish. Given a violent convulsion (only just such a slipping of strata as carelessly piled volumes will accomplish in a book-case) and behold, the heir of all the ages is stark, raving mad—a brute among the dishevelled hills. Set a hundred of the world's greatest spirits, men of fixed principles, high aims, resolute endeavour, enormous experience, and the modesty that these attributes ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... I felt that another such encounter would drive me raving mad. Somewhere there must be a natural explanation; it was only a question of finding it. Among other things it occurred to me that someone, for reason unknown, might be playing a series of practical jokes upon me, but it was hard to believe a hoax of such malignant and serious intent. Besides, it ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... cared more for a pot of good ale and a glass of gin than for the Protestant interest. Hence, their first object, when they had entered the houses of Sir John Fielding and Lord Mansfield, was the wine-cellars. They drank till they were raving mad! It was in this state that they were found by a detachment of foot-guards in and opposite the house of Lord Mansfield. The officer who commanded them was requested to enter the house with his men; but he replied, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his mind, just as a man does when he is lost in the bush. So the day wore on, night and bedtime came again, and Philip lay down to rest once more right over the imprisoned snake. Then that snake went raving mad, lost all control of himself, and rolled about recklessly. Philip sat up in bed, and a cold sweat began to trickle down his face, and his hair stood on end. He whispered to himself as if afraid the snake might hear him. "The Lord preserve us, that's no mouse; it's a snake right ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... pans, that we were greatly startled, imagining nothing less but that the city was surprised by the rebels. I ran immediately to the door, where I found my old fat landlord roaring and whooping like a man raving mad. This increased my astonishment, and the noise was so great that I could neither be heard, nor get an answer to know what the matter was. At last I cried as loud as possibly I could to the old man to know the reason of this sad confusion and outcry, who in a great fright ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... her to the duke of Gloster of alluring lord Hastings from his allegiance, and the lord protector soon trumped up a charge against both; the lord chamberlain he ordered to execution for treason, and Jane Shore he persecuted for witchcraft. Alicia goes raving mad.—Rowe, Jane Shore (1713). ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Krill, who slept in one room with her daughter, was awakened by loud shouts. She sprang to her feet and hurried out, her daughter came also, as she had been awakened and was terrified. Mrs. Krill found that her husband was raving mad with drink and smashing the furniture in the ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... most diabolical sound, a prolonged lupine yell or yowl, as if a stupendous wolf, as big, say, as the Anglo-Bavarian brewery, had howled his loudest and longest. This infernal row, which makes Shepton seem like a town or village gone raving mad, was merely to inform the men, and, incidentally, the universe, that it was time for them to knock ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... case," said the Commissioner. "Meant a journey of some eight hundred miles with a man, a powerful man too, raving mad." ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... 'ad 'is sleep out, mind," he said, pausing at the door, "else I can't answer for the consequences. If 'e should get up in the night and come down raving mad, try and soothe 'im. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs |
