"Silly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... felt that way too. So I simply asked him what he was doing and he made some silly remark about Bluebeard's chamber. He means to keep his old secret, too, 'cause he put the key on his key-ring when he didn't know ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... be so silly," Gladys cried, "of course there isn't any water here. It's only a trick, a trick to frighten you—and I'm beginning to think ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... the moments of contrast with which Strauss has attempted to relieve the dominant mood of his work. Just as in "Salome" the more restless and sensual passages, lazily felt as they are, are nevertheless infinitely more significant than the intensely contrasting silly music assigned to the Prophet, so, too, in "Elektra," the moments when Strauss is cruel, brutal, ugly are of a much higher expressiveness than those in which he has sought to write beautifully. For whereas in moments of the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... of the silly things attributed to God by our Christ-worshipers, let us look a little further into their mysteries. They worship one God in three persons, or three persons in one God, and they attribute to themselves ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... from a sharp fit of goose, such as attacks many boys who, because matters do not go exactly as they like at home, consider that they are ill-used, and long for what they call their freedom—a freedom which is really slavery, inasmuch as they make themselves the bond-servants of their silly fancies, and it takes some ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... with an idea; jump to a conclusion, rush to a conclusion; think the moon is made of green cheese; take for granted, grasp the shadow for the substance; catch at straws, grasp at straws. impose upon &c (deceive) 545. Adj. credulous, gullible; easily deceived &c 545; simple, green, soft, childish, silly, stupid; easily convinced; over-credulous, over confident, over trustful; infatuated, superstitious; confiding &c (believing) 484. Phr. the wish the father to the thought; credo quia impossibile [Lat.] [Tertullian]; all is not gold that glitters; no es ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... breakfast. It seemed a silly thing to do, but I ate it heartily. The Warden came with a quart of whiskey. I presented it to Murderers Row with my compliments. The Warden, poor man, is afraid, if I be not drunk, that I shall make a mess of the function and cast reflection ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... you are crying," exclaimed Samuel, thoroughly angry, "you are not only hard-headed, but also silly, simply silly! 'Long of hair but short of sense.' To cry and cry, and not know wherefore!" With this Samuel turned towards us, and began ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... work that sport is the only thing they can occupy themselves with when they have any leisure, and the men who don't have to work are even duller than the men who do, and vicious as well; and the women live for display and silly amusements and silly immoralities—do you know how awful that life is?... Of course I know there are clever people and people of taste in that set, but they're swamped and spoiled, and it's the ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... has largely done. The European world is using black and brown men for all the uses which men know. Slowly but surely white culture is evolving the theory that "darkies" are born beasts of burden for white folk. It were silly to think otherwise, cries the cultured world, with stronger and shriller accord. The supporting arguments grow and twist themselves in the mouths of merchant, scientist, soldier, traveler, writer, and missionary: Darker peoples are dark in mind as well as in body; of dark, uncertain, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... that astonishing utterance of Menelaus to his servant who proposed to turn away the guests: "Thou prattlest silly things like a child, verily have we come hither partaking of the hospitable fare of other men." Therefore we ought to give that which we have received. One likes to note these touches of humanity in the old heathen Greek; he too knew and applied the Golden Rule. The ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... it would have less charms for the ignorant, who are pleased only with obscurity, terrors, fables, prodigies, and things incredible. Romances, silly stories, and the tales of ghosts and wizards, are more pleasing to ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... "You silly old man," said she, "Why did you not bring the large box? Just think what we have lost. We might have had twice as much silver and gold as this. You are certainly an old fool!" she screamed, and then went to bed as angry as she ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... think city children would care for such a name. You see, dear, they are so precocious from their daily experiences that they might think a bird-name silly," said Mrs. Talmage. ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... stared and rubbed their eyes; and looked angry. "You lie, Bennie!" one cried; "You are a silly girl, Elsa," ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... must! you must! You must all like him! You don't know—his thoughts, his ideals—they are wonderful. He's like some knight of the Middle Ages.... Ah, but you'll think that silly, Mr. Durward. You're a practical Englishman. I ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... back of them, stronger than them. You started it. I want the big things now—I want to be worth while. But yet clothes and gayety and horses and automobiles—I'm glued tight in that round. I don't believe I can tear loose. I don't believe I want to. Do you see—I'm in torment. And—silly idiot that I am—it's not for me to decide anything. I'm turning into a ton of stone—I'll be a horrible unhuman monster and have to give it all up and have nothing in return. Soon I'll lay down my life and not find it. I won't. I'll pull the trigger. ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... call it silly," said Mrs. O'Mara from where she stood with her partner in all the glory of a maroon satin that fitted her as if she were an upholstered sofa. "I'd no more go live in that clearin' with the Wendigees, or whatever ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... I am babbling these silly nothings when I have some real news up my sleeve. We have a new worker, a ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... should have traded herself to save Garvington from a well-deserved punishment, seemed inexcusable to the gypsy. If he had been the man she loved, then indeed might she have acted rightly. But having thrown over that very man in this silly fashion, for the sake of what did not appear to be worth the sacrifice, Chaldea felt that Agnes did not deserve Lambert, and she then and there determined that the Gentile lady should never ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... of Windsor, says that but for his "admirable dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the town," says Luce in the Comedy of Errors. "Like silly beggars, who sitting in stocks refuge their shame," occurs in Richard II; and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... turned back laughing at her, and then he jumped straight into the middle of the puddle and began to dance up and down in it, the muddy water splashing up to his knees. She ran over to him crying 'Stop, silly!' When she came into the house, I bolted my door and I gave no ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... into silly giggling," was the rather tart reply. "I abhor that myself. But a smile on a child's face is much to be preferred to a frown. 'And a merry heart doeth good like ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... majesty," The beggers all gan cry; "Vouchsafe to give your charity, Our childrens food to buy." The king to them his purse did cast, And they to part it made great haste; This silly woman was the last That after them did hye. The king he cal'd her back againe, And unto her he gave his chaine; And said, "With us you shal remaine Till ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... are tired of this already. Josephine has probably been filling you with a lot of my foolishness. She says I must be silly or I would have my stuff published in books. But I am waiting, waiting until I have come down to the last facts. I am experimenting now with the black and the silver fox. And there are many other experiments to come, many of them. But you are ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... meadow, our two friends went arm in arm about the fair grounds; Miss Beal bought, as her first purchase, a spool of ribbon; and Mrs. Grumble had her fortune told. They rode on the carousel, all the while thinking: "This is really too silly." As Mrs. Grumble climbed down from her wooden horse, she said to herself: "I'm having as good a time as that little girl with the pigtails, who is going around for the ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... was enough to have softened the heart of the vilest "Legree;" but probably, had one of those gentlemen, whose highly respectable occupation it is to deal in the traffic of buying and selling—man, been present, they might have been led to remark, "The silly creatures seem to ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... as his mates called him—did not intend this for a compliment by any means, though it may sound like one. Being an irreligious as well as a stupid man, he held that all who professed religion were hypocritical and silly. Manliness, in poor Jo's mind, consisted of swagger, quiet insolence, cool cursing, and general godlessness. With the exception of Fred Martin, the rest of the crew of the Lively Poll resembled him in his irreligion, ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... He contrives to eke out a tolerable livelihood: I should say that his provincial blasphemies and his city practise bring him a clear five hundred pounds a year at the least. But is it not the wages of iniquity? He has a few followers here, but only a few. He has recently done a very silly act; for he has, all at once, converted "Voltaire Villa" into a glass house, and the whole neighborhood can now see into the wigwam, where he dwells in true Red Indian fashion with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... information that I can obtain on the subject; and here, take the order, and go and see your friend the Duke. Tell him I will come and see him to-morrow, and give him what consolation you can; but yet do not act like a silly boy, and make too light of the business, for two reasons: first, because the matter is really serious—the good folks of London have an appetite for blood upon them just now, and will not be satisfied unless they see a head struck off every now and then; and next, because, if his lordship do ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Englishman of this type can't refrain from quoting such phrases as, "Too proud to fight," whenever opportunity offers. His American counterpart insists that he is not fighting for Great Britain, but for the French. He makes himself offensive by silly talk about sister republics, implying that all other forms of Government are essentially tyrannic. He never loses an opportunity to mention Lafayette, assuming that one French man is worth ten Britishers. A very ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... tell him about some silly men who killed the sparrows and other birds, and the next year their fruit and corn were eaten up by grubs. Even the leaves on the ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... they are saving something, that way. Nonsense! I know better. It is all foolishness, this craze for giving. Most things are better destroyed as soon as you are done with them. Why, nobody wants such truck as this. Now, could any child ever have cared for so silly a thing?" She pulled out a faded jumping-jack, and regarded it scornfully. "Idiotic! Such toys are demoralizing for children—weaken their minds. It is a shame to think how every one seems bound to spoil children, especially at Christmas ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... opposite side of the house, he said, "O what a splendor and glory will all the elect and redeemed saints have one day, and O! how much more will the glory of the Creator be, who shall communicate that glory to all his own, but the shallow thoughts of silly men are not able to ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... and his wife and visitor exchanged glances. Foolishly credulous and blindly superstitious, as well as prejudiced, their minds were like the fallow ground ready to receive any impression, however silly. ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... what did Giglio know of the heavenly bodies? Once, when on a sweet night in a balcony where they were standing, Angelica said, 'There is the Bear.' 'Where?' says Giglio. 'Don't be afraid, Angelica! if a dozen bears come, I will kill them rather than they shall hurt you.' 'Oh, you silly creature!' says she; 'you are very good, but you are not very wise.' When they looked at the flowers, Giglio was utterly unacquainted with botany, and had never heard of Linnaeus. When the butterflies passed, Giglio knew nothing about them, being as ignorant of entomology as I am of algebra. ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... behind them. He would have liked to make a theatrical bow and say something silly, too, but he only smiled, felt an awkwardness that was like shame, and waited impatiently for what would ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... suggested. He tried to keep his mind on the flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave below. He thought of the danger of coming into some underground body of water, where he would be drowned; but he knew that was a silly idea. If the shell had gone through [v]subterranean reservoirs, the water of these would have run out, and before it reached the bottom of the shaft would have dissipated ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... wanting. In a tale told by the Saxons of Transylvania it is said that a young man shot at a witch again and again. The bullets went clean through her but did her no harm, and she only laughed and mocked at him. "Silly earthworm," she cried, "shoot as much as you like. It does me no harm. For know that my life resides not in me but far, far away. In a mountain is a pond, on the pond swims a duck, in the duck is an egg, in the egg burns a light, that light is my life. If you could put out that light, my life would ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the justice of the peace is a silly institution," Levin answered gloomily. He had been all the time looking for an opportunity to enter into conversation with Vronsky, so as to smooth over his rudeness at ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... it. "What if it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I am the silly moth ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Amber, summarising the episode as succinctly as he could. "He didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's telling the truth about mistaking me for you. At all events he hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot of rot about some silly 'Voice,' and finally made me a free gift of a nice little bronze box that wouldn't open. After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call later for my answer—whatever he meant by that. He did call by night and stole the box. That's about all I know of ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... had achieved. The reward of all his struggles with trial and temptation was lavishly bestowed in her commendation, and if fidelity had not been its own reward, he could have accepted her approval as abundant compensation for all he had endured. There was no silly sentiment in Harry's composition; he had read no novels, seen no plays, knew nothing of romance even "in real life." The homage he yielded to the fair and loving girl was an unaffected reverence for simple purity and goodness; that which the True Heart and the True Life never ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... your spite—or shall I call it, temper?—against Patricia. For the moment, you are intensely angry at her. Not only that, you feel that you have been out-done, at every point. That she has acted unreasonably, I will not deny. But what a silly thing it would be for you and me to stand together at the altar, and pledge ourselves to each other for life, or until such time as the divorce-courts might intervene, just because of the events of to-day!" ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... and Rome on purpose to transfer the centre of the empire to the Greek east and to make Ilion or Alexandria its capital, was nothing but a piece of talk— very easy to be accounted for, but also very silly—of the angry nobility. On the contrary in Caesar's organizations the Latin nationality always retained the preponderance; as is indicated in the very fact that he issued all his enactments in Latin, although those destined for the Greek-speaking countries were at ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... proposed that we speak to the Allies with ultimatums, but did those who made this silly proposal think that this road might lead to the breaking of diplomatic relations with the Allies, and to that very separate peace which is condemned by all factions among us? Did Lenine think of the actual ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... "That's silly," said Jacob Peters, speaking with some warmth. "It can't hurt you to be seen there. They sell oysters, and all we should go there for would be to buy oysters. Come along. Don't be foolish!" And Jacob grasped the arm of Ralph, and tried to draw him towards the refectory. But ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... they were so closely pursued, that those who escaped the slaughter threw themselves into the river, where they perished. Tallard, being surrounded, was taken near a mill behind the village of Sonderen, together with the marquis de Montperouz, general of horse, the major-generals de Seppeville, de Silly, de la Valiere, and many other officers of distinction. While these occurrences passed on the loft wing, Marsin's quarters at the village of Oberklau, in the centre, were attacked by ten battalions under the prince of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... 'Silly girl,' responded her mother—'don't you know that the men will all run distracted after a pretty woman in male attire? Besides, such a costume will ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... at sea. If the convoy sailed well and steered right I never barked at them. You are a modest, sensible girl, and have always steered a good course. Why should I hoist a petticoat and play the small tyrant? Wait till I see you going to do something wrong or silly." ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... ahead of his he recognized the man who had been annoyed one day by the silly question of the Montague girl. They had said he was a very important director. He still looked important and intensely serious. He was a short, very plump man, with pale cheeks under dark brows, and troubled looking ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... save or please her. We have seen, too, on how slight a provocation these islanders will commit suicide, an act which proves a weak intellect rather than strong feeling. A man capable of feeling true love would have brains enough to restrain himself from committing such a silly and useless act in a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... rather remarkable against that green. She glanced around, evidently in rapt admiration of everything she saw. Her eyes were very bright and big, her young, red lips a little apart. "Silly thing, gaping with her mouth open!" Aline relieved her feelings by ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... would be the same again as soon as you went away." I could not conceal my distress, and she went on: "Now, you mustn't mind what I say. I'm nothing but a silly old woman, and Eveleth would never forgive me if she could know what ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... to make a pitiful defence of poor poetry, which, from almost the highest estimation of learning, is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children; so have I need to bring some more available proofs, since the former is by no man barred of his deserved credit, whereas the silly latter hath had even the names of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great danger of civil war among the ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... were brought! ... Simply loads of flowers!' And how on that day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy person, had shot himself from love—and how Orlov too had been there.... And going up to Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and called him a lucky man.... 'A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!' said he. And how in answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful bow, and had swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his hat, as if he would say: 'Your Excellency, there is a line now between you and my spouse, which you will ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the young lady ran to tell her father, and said there was a pretty young man in the back kitchen; and immediately the gentleman came to him, and questioned him, and asked what work he could do. Jack said, the silly fellow, that he could do anything. (He meant that he could do any foolish bit of work, that would be wanted about ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen thought ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... I just read this through and it's silly. It sounds like some kind of a myth, written in the Fifteenth Century instead of the Twentieth, but I am not going to tear it up. The thing I really wanted to write about this morning was the goodness of being ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... the man turn pale under his tan, and for a moment he was speechless, while his mate Silas whispered something in his ear. But he would not listen. Instead, he pushed the man roughly away, angrily exclaiming, "Hold yer silly tongue, ye blame fool!" Then, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... in weak moments, we are sometimes heard to say: 'After all, youth was a great fool. Look at the tinsel he was sure was solid gold. Can you imagine it? This tawdry tinkling bit of womanhood, a silly doll that says "Don't" when you squeeze it,—he actually mistook her for a goddess.' Ah! reader, don't you wish you could make such a splendid mistake? I do. I'd give anything to be once more sitting before the footlights for ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... between medicine and astrology survives in the sign of Jupiter 4, which still heads medicinal prescriptions.] and that by casting "horoscopes," showing just how the stars appeared at the birth of any person, the subsequent career of such an one might be foreseen. Many silly notions and superstitions grew up about astrology, yet the practice persisted. Charles V and Francis I, great rivals in war, vied with each other in securing the services of most eminent astrologers, and Catherine de' Medici never tired of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... horrid nightmare. Fear entered into her soul, took full control; then followed the wild erratic circling around the room, with various ridiculous attempts to run up the walls, which were so insanely silly that little James shrieked for joy, and joining in with the broom, urged the cat to still more amazing evidences of muscular activity not ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... one else ought to interfere," cried Alexia, with a little pout, provoked at his indifference; "that's just the way she does in school all the time. Oh! I'm vexed at her, I can tell you. She's so silly—dear ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... light, and the easels and lay-figure stood gaunt and ghostly along the further wall. I waited there and reasoned with myself, arguing that there was no possible cause for fear, that a strong man ought to control his nerves, that it was silly at my time of life to begin to be afraid of the dark, but I could not get rid of the sensation. As I went back to the bedroom I experienced the same succession of physical shocks; but whether they followed each other in the same order or not I was ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... veld traveller, Clifford, my friend; one more step of those silly beasts, and down below there would have been two red heaps with bits of bones sticking out of them—yes, there on the rocks five hundred feet beneath. Ah! you would have slept soundly ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... written down at all. Their great adventure here in England has been most written of by far; but I say again no one has made enough of them; no one has brought them back out of their graves. The character of what they did has been lost in these silly little modern quarrels about races, which are but the unscholarly expression of a deeper ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... appeal to her, and she felt that she must rest contented with the fact as it was, without seeking to know how or why. One point, however, stood out very clearly: Beverly Cruger had been obviously jealous last night at the opera. Octavie's silly prattle about a young and handsome foreign nobleman had had a marked effect upon him, and Helene's heart beat slightly faster as she pondered over this phase of ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... angry eye (Corkine) Shall I abide this jesting (Alison) Shall I come, sweet Love, to thee (Campion) Shall I look to ease my grief (Jones) She whose matchless beauty staineth (Jones) Shoot, false Love! I care not (Morley) Silly boy! 'tis full moon yet, thy night as day shines clearly (Campion) Simkin said that Sis was fair (Farnaby) Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye (Ford) Sing we and chant it (Morley) Sister, awake! close not your eyes (Bateson) ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... beautiful face: but her whole aspect showed that she thought nothing about herself, and never troubled her head to think whether she was pretty or ugly. The younger, who was about seventeen, was not nearly so handsome; but she would have been pleasant enough to look at if it had not been for a silly simper and a look of intensely satisfied vanity, which quite spoiled any prettiness that she might have had. She had just fastened a pair of ear-rings into her ears, and she was turning her head from one side to ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... companion. He never bored her, as did some others; and he was always thoughtful of cushions and footstools and cups of tea when one was tired. He was, in fact, an ideal friend, just the sort she wanted; and it was such a pity that he must spoil it all now with this silly sentimentality! And of course he had spoiled it all. There was no going back now to their old friendliness. He would be morose or silly by turns, according to whether she frowned or smiled; or else he would take himself off in ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... "Of course not. How silly of him!" I puts in. "There, Steele, that's all straightened out, and here is the original Josie Vernon. What have you got ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... mat, because they shall not see the fiercenesse of the fire, yet there are many that will haue them plucked away, shewing therein an heart not fearefull, and that they are not affrayd of that sight. When this silly woman hath reasoned with the people a good while to her content, there is another women that taketh a pot with oile, and sprinckleth it ouer her head, and with the same she anoynteth all her body, and afterwards throweth the pot into the fornace, and both the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... give you something, my child I wish I could take a quiet corner Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons Mother, let us imagine we are travelling Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds Mother, the light has grown grey Mother, your baby is silly On the seashore of endless worlds O you shaggy-headed banyan tree Say of him what you please Sullen clouds are gathering Supposing I became a champa flower The boat of the boatman Madhu The night was dark when we went ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... generous and enlightened policy. When reason failed, he resorted to sarcasm and mockery. "Because," said he, "we have a right to tax America we must do it; risk everything, forfeit everything, take into consideration nothing but our right. O infatuated ministers! Like a silly man, full of his prerogative over the beasts of the field, who says, there is wool on the back of a wolf, and therefore he must be sheared. What! shear a wolf? Yes. But have you considered the trouble? Oh, I have considered nothing but my right. A wolf ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... "Silly one! What you see is your own sweet face," replied the man, delighted to know that his wife did not recognize herself. "This circle of metal is called a looking-glass. In the city, every woman has one, although here in the country no one has seen ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... silly of me!" she murmured. "There are lots worse things happening every moment over there than being gored by ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... and this is this very fact which I like and regard as wonderful and worthy of worship.—But let me speak no more of this. The words are not good for the secret meaning, everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly—yes, and this is also very good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... you think he is rather silly? He can't talk about anything—anything interesting, I mean. And he pretends to know a lot about books, but I heard him say the other day he had never read The Prince of the House of David ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... "No, silly. How could I when they are all plastered over thick with snow?" was Bob's scornful retort. He was silent for a moment. "But don't you worry," he declared. "I am certain we came this way—at least I think ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... it's my weak health, dear," answered the mother. "I didn't use to be so. But now I don't really seem to have the strength to be sensible. I know it's silly as well as you. The talk just seems to keep going on of itself,—slipping out, slipping out. But you needn't mind. Mr. Ferris won't think you could ever have done anything out of the way. I'm sure you don't act with him as if you'd ever encouraged anybody. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... excessive objectiveness. She judges woman by the heart and intellect of Miss Fuller, but there are not more than one or two dozen Miss Fullers on the whole face of the earth. Holding these opinions in regard to 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' I still feel myself called upon to disavow the silly, condemnatory criticism of the work which appeared in one of the earlier numbers of "The Broadway Journal." That article was not written by myself, and was written by my associate, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... see he has been everything to me; I have never loved any one as I love Father Ambrose. When he comes here I always ask him for some rule or direction, so that I may have the happiness of obeying him till his next visit; and it is so trying, is it not, Sister Teresa, when the novices make their silly little jokes about it? Of course, they don't understand, they can't; but to me Father Ambrose means everything I care for; besides, he is really a saint. I believe he would have been canonised if he had lived in the Middle Ages. He has promised to profess me. ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... to be in his mind the brilliant and fascinating soubrette, and had become in the silly lover's-Latin, his "pug, his duck, his bird." He answered a letter she wrote him describing her success ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Pennsylvania. They say he is very pious, and frowns on gambling, as well he might for the good of his kingdom, and that he is determined to do as his mother told him and be a real king. He doesn't look as though he'd exactly know how. You should have heard him laugh over a little silly joke, when one of the actors sat in a chair on a make-believe baby and a ventriloquist squalled just like a baby. But they says he's obstinate and the colonies can't make him yield to ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... inheritance which he did not know what to do with. He had no profound views of statesmanship, like Augustus or Tiberius. He had no conception of what the true greatness of a country consisted in. Hence his vast treasures were spent in useless wars, silly pomps, and inglorious pleasures. His grand court became the scene of cabals and rivalries, scandals and follies. His wars, from which he expected glory, ended only in shame; his great generals passed away without any ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... laughed. "That sounds very silly, and does not indicate much self-esteem, but there is a deep meaning in it after all. A connection with Austria has always been disastrous to France. Louis XVI. died of his marriage with Marie Antoinette, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... yellowish gray color—much like the hue of badly laundried clothes. His skin prickled, as if with an electric current, for hot rage ate into his soul. His name was not even mentioned. He wasn't there at all—and he was the member for Millford. Of all the silly ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... In the morning he met Anne with some consciousness and distress. A womanly reserve and delicacy made the girl unwilling to affect an intimacy that might not be graciously acknowledged. She treated him coldly, and began to read some silly ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... wrathful. There is such a rush of all other kinds of words in our days, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, and idle words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and silly words, and empty words, and profane words, and boisterous words, and warlike words. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls, and a beautiful image it is. They smooth, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... me, upset me in much the same way, acting on much the same nerves as the valley in which I had walked with that puzzling girl. I remembered that she had said she stood for the future, that she was a symbol of my own decay—the whole silly farrago, in fact. I reasoned with myself—that I was tired, out of trim, and so on, that I was in a fit state to be at the mercy of any nightmare. I plunged into Southampton Row. There was safety in the contact with the crowd, in jostling, in ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... which he preached with a keen, breathless fervor. Scofield had given him a home, clothed him, felt for him after that the condescending, curious affection which a rough barn-yard hen might feel for its adopted poult, not yet sure if it will turn out an eagle or a silly gull. It was a strange affinity between the lank-limbed, cloudy-brained enthusiast at one end of the porch and the shallow-eyed, tobacco-chewing old Scofield at the other,—but a real affinity, striking something deeper in their natures than blood-kinship. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... war. But you want revolution. You are against war and for revolution. That's silly. Just a different kind of war. You're both wrong. There's no ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... a movement. He shivered when the lodge door was heard to open and shut and heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel and snow around the church. "Juist fair silly" on his quaking legs he stood up, head and tail drooped. But he held his ground bravely, and when the caretaker sighted him he trotted to meet the man, lifted himself on his hind legs, his short, shagged fore paws on his breast, begging attention and indulgence. Then he sprawled ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... am sure you believe that I want to be liberal and reasonable, and not to act like those weak alarmists who, whenever the silly sheep begin to skip as if something was after them, and huddle together in their fright, are sure there must be a bear or a lion coming to eat them up. But for all that, I want to beg you to handle some of these points, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... his assistant, since there is danger to the gunner in balls to which sand or dirt adhere, is placed in the piece without forcing it till it touches gently on the wad, the gunner being careful not to hold himself in front of the gun, for it is silly to run danger without reason. Finally he will put in one more wad, and at another roll of drums the piece ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... box and looked at him. "Randy is only a boy. I am very fond of him. But we aren't either of us—silly." ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... looked upon this affair of the singing-bird as a freak that must end—and then perhaps his Grace, who was a charming young man, would return to his senses. There also was her sister, a long, fair girl, who looked sentimental, but was only silly. There was a little French actress, like a highly finished miniature; and a Spanish danseuse, tall, dusky, and lithe, glancing like a lynx, and graceful as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... silly toys, I know, And titles are but empty names; I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,— But only near St. James; I'm very sure I should not care To ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... restless, and his nerves were all quivering. He would have given anything for a cigarette, but he did not wish to scent himself with tobacco. He had cut himself in shaving, and his nose was peeling from a hot day on the cricket-field. What a silly thing to expose his nose to the sun before his wedding! Perhaps when Maude saw it she would—well, she could hardly break it off, but at least she might be ashamed of him. He worked himself into a ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... laughed heartily at the foolish fellows who were so positive that they knew everything when they knew nothing, you begin to see the danger in what are called "snap judgments." "Look at these ridiculous fellows," says Father Laughter, "and consider how silly it is to jump to a conclusion unless you ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... silly woman! what d'ye suppose I'd chance breakin' me neck gettin' out o' me buggy fer, but a ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... later, with bands playing and people cheering, they wheeled out of barracks, brown and businesslike. Jane was in the front somewhere, waving her handkerchief—not such a silly Jane, after all. And at the back, very proud for her, Celia and I stood silent, with a something in the throat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... absorbing others. So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly, (to speak within bounds,) for a modern Bible dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that hyper-fashionable ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... begged. "Please don't! It's bad enough to have to hear that silly chorus every time I happen to wake up during the night—bad enough, I say, without being obliged to listen to ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... fun," replied Filippa. We place a pail of water in a dark place, and light a candle which floats on a saucer. The ants fly to the light. Their wings are burnt off; and, silly, half-blind things, they all get drowned or wet, so that we ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... believe he means me. I like his awe. The Duke of Richmond, taking me for his son, reproached himself to Lady Caroline Fox for not wishing me joy. She is so sorry she undeceived him! Charles Townshend has turned his artillery upon his own court: he says, "Silly fellow for silly fellow, I don't see why it is not as well to be governed by my uncle with a blue riband, as by my ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... me somewhere. That is what you say you mean to do. And why? Because you get some silly nonsense into your head, and then make yourself and me ridiculous in public. If you think I am what you seem to suspect, you had better let papa have me back again,—though that is so horrible that I can hardly bring myself to think of it. If you do not think so, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... nibbled, and was almost persuaded to be a Christian,—that is, to forswear thenceforth and forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral cowardice;—as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have mentioned, and which I am coming to now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... silly boy, I've got it on now. Look on my watch chain. I wonder if that could be what—what that Mongolian was ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... a feeling of not altogether unpleasant lassitude stole over Mrs. Bunting. It was a comfort to have Daisy out of her way for a bit. The girl, in some ways, was very wide awake and inquisitive, and she had early betrayed what her stepmother thought to be a very unseemly and silly curiosity concerning the lodger. "You might just let me have one peep at him, Ellen?" she had pleaded, only that morning. But Ellen had shaken her head. "No, that I won't! He's a very quiet gentleman; but he knows exactly what he likes, and he ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... with a letter from his solicitor. Oh, how stupid we were to believe what Mrs. Keithley wrote—just silly gossip. We ought to have remembered that she couldn't know; and she never got a story straight, anyway. Do hurry and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... what is the young man talking about?" exclaimed Scarecrow, Nightmare and Shakejoint, one to another, with great appearance of astonishment. "A pair of flying slippers, quoth he! His heels would quickly fly higher than his head if he was silly enough to put them on. And a helmet of invisibility! How could a helmet make him invisible, unless it were big enough for him to hide under it? And an enchanted wallet! What sort of a contrivance may that be, I wonder? No, no, good stranger! we can tell you nothing of these marvelous things. You ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... forsooth," returned Bruno; "'tis my firm belief that at this very moment he is at breakfast at home, having left to us this wild-goose chase of black stones in the Mugnone." "Marry," quoth Buffalmacco, "he did but serve us right so to trick us and leave, seeing that we were so silly as to believe him. Why, who could have thought that any but we would have been so foolish as to believe that a stone of such rare virtue was to be found in the Mugnone?" Calandrino, hearing their colloquy, forthwith imagined that he had the stone ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... "Don't be so silly," said Mrs. Dale calmly, "or think that no one loves your father but yourself. He was my brother for thirty-four years before he was your father. I only spoke for your good, and his too, for of course he would be ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... he plied; The busy daw flew with him, side by side, And by a thousand teasing questions drew The important secret from him as they flew. 20 The daw gave honest counsel, though despised, And, tedious in her tattle, thus advised: 'Stay, silly bird, the ill-natured task refuse, Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news. Be warned by my example: you discern What now I am, and what I was shall learn. My foolish honesty was all my crime; Then hear my story. Once upon a time, The two-shaped Ericthonius had his birth (Without ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... trembling and crying, she went down on her knees and begged me to give yer father up; but I liked him, and I felt angered with her for taking on what I called foolish, and I wouldn't yield; and I told her she was real silly, and I was ashamed of her. They were the bitterest words I ever flung at her, and they seemed to freeze up her whole heart. She got up off her knees and walked away with her pretty head in the air, and wouldn't speak to me for the evening; ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... "I've listened to some silly stories in my life, colonel," the general said coldly, "but this takes the cake. You come in here with an insane asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit there and tell me that this poor soul has ...
— A Filbert Is a Nut • Rick Raphael
... the Marshpees—a small tribe who have their hunting-grounds on the shores of the Great Lake, and near the Cape of Storms[A]—a woman whose name was Awashanks. She was rather silly and remarkably idle. For days together she would sit doing nothing, while the other females of the village were busily employed in weeding the corn, or bringing home fuel from the distant wood, or drying the fish, or thatching the cabins, or mending ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... have gone to all this trouble," spoke up the fair and spirited Mollie, "only for that silly letter my friend in Harmony wrote me, saying that it was a foregone conclusion Harmony would sweep the earth this year because their team had been terribly strengthened. In fact she gave me to understand that everything, even to the crepe, had been ordered ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... him a good chase into the bargain. But next night he was back again, and this time got safely off with the goose. A couple of nights after he must have come with recruits, for next morning three large goslings were reported missing. The silly geese now got it through their noddles that there was danger about, and every night thereafter came close up to the ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... not with the blaring of trumpet, To herald the birth of a king; I come, not with traditional story, The life of a savior to sing; I come, not with jests for the silly, I come, not to worship the strong, But to question the powers that govern, To point out a ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... one day he visited Black Creek, where he crouched near the water with the hope that some silly fish would swim within reach of his ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... silly boy, and you tell him I said so," answered the tall policeman promptly. "Of course a bad boy might not want to see me; but this was a mighty good lad, to my way of thinking. He has an old head on young shoulders, to get you out of such a mix-up ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... bitter moods, when it prompts sentiments and declarations that are very little in accordance with its real impulses. I was so much ashamed of what I had just said, and, in truth, so much frightened, that, instead of attempting to laugh it off, as a silly, unmeaning opinion, or endeavouring to explain that this was not my own way of thinking, I walked on some distance in silence, myself, and suffered my companion to imitate me in this particular. I have since had reason to think that Lucy was not pleased at my manner ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... put back behind her ears, which were red with shyness and modesty. She did not please me very much at first sight; I looked at her with prejudice. Chvabrine had described Marya, the Commandant's daughter, to me as being rather silly. She went and sat down in a corner, and began to sew. Still the "chtchi"[40] had been brought in. Vassilissa Igorofna, not seeing her husband come back, sent Palashka for the second time to ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... "I don't believe he did, for he asked all sorts of silly questions about it that he wouldn't have asked if he ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... Lyceum? That's so silly of you, Jim. We're not all crazy there; and that," said Miss Sissons, demurely, "is what makes a girl like me ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... child knew, and was conscious that she knew, that she was doing wrong because she had been forbidden. There was rational ground for her fear. How would Jesus have received the confession of the darling? He would not have told her she was silly, and "never to mind." Child as she was, might he not have said to her, "I do not condemn thee: ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... the man going crazy over silly stories, and then burst out laughing, but still showed considerable interest as I related to him the chief outlines ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... a God lay lurking under a gray cloake, Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke? And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines, But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing His blood-sucking ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... a little. This was not a nice boy, and she did not like to be called "silly." Still, he was somebody besides—old folks. "Where did ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... And then—well your course would be run! No,—study up spleen's nomenclature; Learn all the mad logic of hate, And then, though your style be like skilly, Your sense frothy Styx in full spate. And your maxims portentously silly; You will find party scope for your pen, Coin meanness and malice to money; But sour dulness must keep to his den, And never ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... them has the most power?" she said in conclusion. "The Marquise was very near getting you into trouble in the silly business of the commission on her husband, and we ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... intermingling of organs." An appeal was made to Parliament against the singing of the noble cathedral music by "chanting choristers disguised, as are all the rest, in white surplices, some in corner caps and silly copes, imitating the fashion and manner of Antichrist the Pope, that man of sin and child of perdition, with his other rabble of miscreants ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... just a little scandalised the town with a most engagingly flippant and piquant farce all about an accidentally bigamous beauty, certainly shows courage in launching so serious a discussion as The Unknown. And in the silly season too. I see that in a quite unlikely interview (but then all modern interviews are unlikely) he defends his right to discuss religion quite openly on the stage. Of course. Why should anybody deny that religion is to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... brings Adam and Eve before us, rejoicing in the abundant delights of Eden. The guiding principle of the scene is the folly and wickedness of the Fall. Here is no thought of excuse for silly Eve. With every good around her, and with God's prohibition unforgotten, she chooses disobedience, and drags Adam after her. But Adam's guilt is no less than hers. The writer had not Milton at his elbow to teach him how to twist the Bible narrative into an argument for the superiority of ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... know that silly talk!" broke in the student rudely. "A bunch of ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few catch-words. You don't understand what they mean. You just echo them like a lot of parrots." The crowd laughed. "I'm a Marxian student. And I tell you that this isn't ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... "It's silly," burst out Andrews excitedly. "We should have faith in our own selves. We can't live a little rag of romance without dragging in literature. We are drugged with literature so that we can never live ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... we are!" answered the laughing peasants. "It is our duty to be silly. If we cannot laugh at something, we laugh at nothing, since this is Sillyburg, the merriest ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... almost fifteen, when I overheard a young lady say I was growing pretty. I went to my mirror and spent some moments in unalloyed happiness and triumph. Then I thought, "Pretty face, the worms will eat you. All the prettiest girls I know are silly, but you shall never make a fool of me. Helen's beauty ruined Troy. Cleopatra was a wretch. So if you are pretty, I ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... momentous one. There were plenty of aspirants for the honor. Her brother-in-law Philip, since the abdication of Charles V., his father, was a mighty King, ruler over Spain and the Netherlands, and was at the head of Catholic Europe. He saw in this vain, silly young Queen of England an easy prey. By marrying her he could bring England back to the fold, as he had done with her sister Mary, and the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... for twelve years not a single coin has passed through my hands. For I have lived on this island twelve years, sir, with the other two, for I count Almira as a person. Noemi declares we are four; she counts Narcissa, too—silly child! ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... upon the time the dead of night, (a) When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes. (b) No comfortable star did lend his light, (a) No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries; (b) Now serves the season that they may surprise (b) The silly lambs. Pure thoughts are dead and still, (c) While lust and murder wakes ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... talking silly, Mr. Wix. How many young folk tell you their christened names right off?" But she had got on weak ground. She got off it again discreetly. "Anyhow, Mrs. Treadwell she's inventing nothing, having no call to." She turned to Aunt Elizabeth Jane with the question:—"How come she to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... my cricket has learnt, I am sure of it quite, That this earth is a silly, strange place, And perhaps he's been beaten and hurt in the fight, And perhaps he's been passed in the race. But I know he has found it far better to sing Than to talk of ill luck and to sigh,— Little we care for the outside world, My friend ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... himself as he saw a nut roll to the ground, "now that nut will take root and grow into a tree and I will have to lie here for ages beneath its branches. I wish the silly squirrel had gone some other ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... arms. Both bared their blades and exchanged cuts, when the Baliyy found that his old flamberge was too blunt to do damage. Consequently he had the worse of the affair; a slicing of the right hand forced him to drop his "silly sword." He then closed with his adversary, who again proved himself the better man, throwing the assailant, and at the same time slashing open his left leg. The wounded man lay in the "bush" till he gathered strength to "dot and go one" homewards. Amongst ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... crackled in his hands and fluttered to the floor. He opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it, and repeated the action more than once. Then he scratched his head with a helpless air, and picked up his newspaper. 'Silly girl!' he said at last; 'silly girl!' and relapsed into silence. At the close of breakfast, however, he made an effort at expostulation. 'You will make the man believe you're in love with him,' he said, and in fact he ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... sadder Than if my master were an adder, With brains within the latitude Of such immense ingratitude. This, gentles, is my honest view; And so I bid you both adieu.' The man, confounded and astonish'd To be so faithfully admonish'd, Replied, 'What fools to listen, now, To this old, silly, dotard cow! Let's trust the ox.' 'Let's trust,' replied The crawling beast, well gratified. So said, so done; The ox, with tardy pace, came on And, ruminating o'er the case, Declared, with very serious face, That years of his most painful toil Had clothed ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... said Mr. Lambert thickly. "I don't want any of your silly games! I shall be late enough home as it is. You unlock that door, and show me the way to this Beg's at ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... learning things, the desire to be keeping apace with just a little bit of the world's progress, and, best of all, teaching oneself how to live wisely and well. There never was—to my way of thinking—a brainless, silly woman who was beautiful. It takes the light of intellect, the splendor of sweet womanliness, the glory of kindness, unselfishness and goodness to complete a perfect picture of ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... could go there and make them see how silly they are," she impatiently declared. "If they would only be friendly with the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... master silly pieces have got into the paper, fust an' last," said Mrs. Robbins. "Recollect how your Len come 'way over here to git his shoes cobbled, the week arter Tom Brewer moved int' the Holler, an' folks hadn't ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... oak and wainscot old, Within doth eat the silly worm: Even so a mind in envy cold, Always within itself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... you don't like him enough." She laughed a little, teasingly, "Perhaps it's all just our nonsense, and he never has thought of you in that way. Maybe when he comes to see you he'll tell you about a beautiful girl in Urbana or Cincinnati that he's engaged to—and then what would your silly ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... of Briarfield; of the natives of Yorkshire generally; complaints of the want of high society; of the backward state of civilization in these districts; murmurings against the disrespectful conduct of the lower orders in the north toward their betters; silly ridicule of the manner of living in these parts—the want of style, the absence of elegance, as if he, Donne, had been accustomed to very great doings indeed, an insinuation which his somewhat underbred manner and aspect failed to bear out. These strictures, he seemed to ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Tuttle family, this place is, I suppose," says Tink. "It got father, and it has almost got me. Some folks can breathe brass filings and carbon dioxide and thrive on it; but we can't. So I gave up and hid myself away in here to work out one of my silly dreams. Last spring I caught a bad cold, and Sister sent me West. There we have an uncle. She thought the change of climate might help my cough. It didn't do a bit of good; but it was out there that I picked up this option. That was when I saw a chance of making my dream ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... have failed humanity if it is so blinded by the monstrous agony in Flanders as to miss the essential triviality at the head of the present war. Not the slaughter of ten million men can make the quality of the German Kaiser other than theatrical and silly. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in every-day life we would smile credulously at our informant and doubt his sanity, but in a patent medicine advertisement we expect to read of miracles and we almost hope to be told of impossible happenings. The more glaringly false and silly they seem to be, the more they seem to exert their subtle hypnotic influence on anyone whose physical or mental temperament ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... went into the house, and found the old man sitting over the fire, rubbing his hands, and half-crying about 'the few poor dollars,' that he said he had had stolen from him. Father had never seen him before, but he knew he had the name of being half silly, and question him as much as he liked, he could make nothing of him. The daughter said that they had gone to bed at dark the night her father was robbed. She slept up stairs, and he down below. About ten o'clock she heard him scream, and running down stairs, ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... of nothing, our prince was guilty of incredible outrages upon various persons and, what was most striking these outrages were utterly unheard of, quite inconceivable, unlike anything commonly done, utterly silly and mischievous, quite unprovoked and objectless. One of the most respected of our club members, on our committee of management, Pyotr Pavlovitch Gaganov, an elderly man of high rank in the service, had formed the innocent habit of declaring vehemently on all sorts of ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... certificated. He wasn't even trained, as the rest of us understood training; and he scoffed at the drawing-office, and laughed outright at logarithms and our laborious methods of getting out quantities. But he could set sheers and tackle in a way that made the rest of us look silly. I remember once how, through the parting of a chain, a sixty-foot girder had come down and lay under a ruck of other stuff, as the bottom chip lies under a pile of spellikins—a hopeless-looking smash. ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... had realized that she might have said: "Did you want to see father?" ... in the idiom of the shop-girl or clerk, and that if she had said 'did' he would have been gravely disappointed and hurt. But she had not. Of course she had not! Of course she was incapable of such a locution, and it was silly of him to have thought otherwise, even momentarily. She was an artist. Entirely different from the blonde and fluffy Mrs. John Orgreave—(and a good thing too, for Mrs. John with her eternal womanishness ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Byng. I don't say that the expert couldn't find what the cause of death was, if suspicion was aroused; but it could be managed so that 'heart failure' or some such silly verdict would be given, because there was no sign of violence, or of injury ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
