"Stupid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been performed. And thou hast heard the duties of the Kshatriyas, recited by Bhishma, the son of Bhagirathi, by Krishna Dwaipayana, Narada and Vidura. Therefore thou shouldst not walk the way of the stupid; but pursuing the course of thy forefathers, sustain the burthen (of the empire). It is meet that a Kshatriya should attain heaven for certain by his (own) renown. Of heroes, those that came to be slain never shall have to turn away (from the celestial regions). ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... I will tell you on condition that you don't bring two thousand after me again. You should look behind you as well as before, stupid." ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... question: "If the interests of your army or your people or yourself are at stake or you have to keep your word on one hand and your pledge word and treaty is on the other hand, which path will you take? Who can be stupid enough to hesitate in answering this question? In other words, treaties are to be kept when they promote your interest, and shamelessly broken when you ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... they walked along the streets of the City of Wonder. What a contrast it was to the gray, stupid towns where the Terror waited to spring upon the cowed people. In Bobruisk, Minsk, Vilna, and Libau the people were sullen and afraid. They walked in dread, but in the City of Wonder beside the glorious Hudson every person seemed ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... publication of Goetz was a great era ... in German literature, and served completely to free them from the French follies of unities and decencies of the scene, and gave an impulse to their dramas which was unique of its kind. Since that, they have been often stark mad but never, I think, stupid. They either divert you by taking the most brilliant leaps through the hoop, or else by tumbling into the custard, as the newspapers averred the Champion did at the Lord ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... gifted, can boast of. During his sojourn in Spain he performed many eminent services for the government which employed him; services which, I believe, it had sufficient discernment to see, and gratitude to reward. He had to encounter, however, the full brunt of the low and stupid malignity of the party who, shortly after the time of which I am speaking, usurped the management of the affairs of Spain. This party, whose foolish manoeuvres he was continually discomfiting, feared and hated him as its evil genius, taking every ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... is full of practical lessons;] Some people, however, never outgrow the child's notion of history as merely a mass of pretty anecdotes or stupid annals, without any practical bearing upon our own every-day life. There could not be a greater mistake. Very little has happened in the past which has not some immediate practical lessons for us; and when we study ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... not call it stupid, my lad; but with so many real difficulties we must not make imaginary ones. Why, Mark, this voyage is making a man of you—self-reliant, business-like, and strong. When we get ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... his rule, and a very good rule it is; but he naturally likes to be the first to look at it," said Mrs. Gresley, with a great exercise of patience. She had heard Hester was clever, but she found her very stupid. Everything had ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... a broken bit of sandwich in one's mouth, just because some German fellow, some fat, stupid man a few miles away, looses off a bit of steel in search of the bodies of men with whom he has ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... asleep where I lay, and was awakened by the policeman. There I sat, recalled mercilessly to life and misery. My first feeling was of stupid amazement at finding myself in the open air; but this was quickly replaced by a bitter despondency, I was near crying with sorrow at being still alive. It had rained whilst I slept, and my clothes were soaked through and through, and I felt a damp ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Muriel!" Jean protested. "You've done for her anyway. But you're wrong in thinking her stupid. She only comes to The Rigs when she isn't occupied with smart friends and is rather dull—I don't see her in her more exalted moments; but I assure you, after she has done talking about 'the County,' and after the full blast of 'dear Lady Tweedie' is over, she is a very ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... it does. Don't tell me! When things get into a silly stupid mess with me I just shut the door and say every swear word I know until I feel better. That's one advantage of living in a hollow in the desert. You needn't even bother to shut the door!... You can shout your ruffled feelings to the kopjes, and I suppose they echo the words back to you. How ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... with the same stupid stare. "Do?" says he. And with that his eye fell on the body, and "O!" he cries out, with his hand to his brow, as if he had never remembered; and, turning from me, made off towards the house of Durrisdeer ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are, and how—I wish I had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war—so stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have ...
— Different Girls • Various
... him under water; he had recourse to the same expedient, and thrust his fingers into its eyes with such violence that it again quitted him; and when it rose, flounced about on the surface of the water as if stupid, and then swam down the middle of the river. Isaaco proceeded to the other side, bleeding very much. As soon as the canoe returned I went over, and found him very much lacerated. The wound on the left thigh was ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... of his troubles and trials during the prosecution of this telegraphic work— troubles from men of pretended science, from selfish men, from stupid men—all chronicled by him without the slightest bitterness against any human being, yet with a quaint humor which made ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... This must be horribly stupid stuff to you, Fairfax: therefore pay me in my own coin; be as dull as you sometimes know how, and bid me ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... perdere gli uomini perle femminelle."[38] If the Black party furnished types for the grosser or fiercer forms of wickedness in the poet's hell, the White party surely were the originals of that picture of stupid and cowardly selfishness, in the miserable crowd who moan and are buffeted in the vestibule of the Pit, mingled with the angels who dared neither to rebel nor be faithful, but "were for themselves"; and whoever it may be who is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... his guests might see his savage power. On reaching home I found Kahala standing like a culprit before my door. She would not admit, what I suspected, that Meri had induced her to run away; but said she was very happy in my house until yester-evening, when Rozaro's sister told her she was very stupid living with the Mzungu all alone, and told her to run away; which she did, taking the direction of N'yamasore's, until some officers finding her, and noticing beads on her neck, and her hair cut, according to the common court fashion, in slopes from a point in the forehead to the breadth ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Laura, you are prejudiced. You must not listen to those stupid servants and their vile exaggerations. Miss Reinhart is very good and very useful to me. I cannot send her away as I would dismiss a ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... what we can do, of course," said Harry. "It isn't very far. We'll leave our bags here at the school, and make packs of the things we need. And then we'll ride in on our bicycles. We were stupid not to think of ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... so stupid? Stupid? It was easy! He had wanted to be stupid! And how could the Mr. Eumenes-or-otherwise have used such obvious giveaway names? It was a measure of their contempt for the humans around them and of their own grim wit. Look at all the double entendres the salesman had ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... suspicion, the matador has a serious work before him. The bull is always regarded from this objective standpoint. The more power of reason the brute has, the worse opinion the Spaniard has of him. A stupid creature who rushes blindly on the sword of the matador is an animal after his own heart. But if there be one into whose brute brain some glimmer of the awful truth has come,—and this sometimes happens,—if he feels the solemn question at issue between ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... on one of the great Atlantic steamers, not knowing any of the other passengers, kept very much to themselves; he usually reading aloud to his wife, and she occupied in some needle work; for this, they were commented upon, and not very favorably, and generally were called the "stupid couple." Little did these same passengers know the true character of that gentleman and lady. An incident that occurred on board soon proved the bravery and heroism of the one, and the gentleness and self-sacrifice of the other. The captain ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... returned fiercely. "He is a coward, too, and never goes for our crowd; but takes boys like Jamie Lyman, stupid, shabby little milksops that don't dare stand up to him. It isn't their fault that they are dunces, and he ought to know it. ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... stooped to the meannesses of commerce, but made themselves famous by martial deeds. "Never," thus argued the chieftain, "had those brave men enervated their bodies and debased their minds by labours fit only for beasts or stupid drudges. Should not the generous blood which flowed in their veins still animate the brave Frasers to deeds ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... from home to the cities or to foreign lands, in search of the work and influence not to be secured at home. The strongest go, and the dull remain. All, this is reversed at Oberammergau. Only the native citizen takes part in the play. Those who are stupid or vicious are excluded from it. Not to take part in the play is to have no reason for remaining in Oberammergau. To be chosen for an important part is the highest honor the people know. So the influences at work retain the best and exclude the others. ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... descent and went the length of the drawing-room through a silence which somewhat awed me. I couldn't help wishing that one could ever get that kind of attention in a concert-hall. In the music-room Stein insisted upon arranging things for me. I must say that he was neither awkward nor stupid, not so wooden as most rich men who rent singers. I was properly affable. One has, under such circumstances, to be either gracious or pouty. Either you have to stand and sulk, like an old-fashioned German ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... anticipated, proceeded in almost unbroken silence. It was very dull indeed, she thought, not half so nice as when Richard was there, and in her pet at Arthur's coolness and silence, she made so many blunders that at last throwing pencil and paper across the room, she declared herself too stupid for ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... happy—temperately so. Perhaps that's the only degree of happiness I shall ever know. Of course, when I was younger I thought I should get to some sort of a place where I could stand in swimming glory and rejoice forever, but I see now how stupid I was to think anything of the sort. I hoped to escape the commonplace by reaching some beatitude, but now I have found that nothing really is commonplace. It only seems so when you aren't understanding enough to get at the ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... having a lovely time in such a charming place. We have been to Saratoga. It was stupid enough to send your ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... again; ten times; fifty times; one hundred times if necessary to thoroughly impress their full meaning upon your intellect. Study them; practice them; teach them; sing them to all the world. Take them for your everlasting motto and you will have no need for all the stupid theories ever created by man. "Eradicate selfishness from all human beings and ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... in submission to the lyre; and the judgment and decision of the sacred mountain pleases them all. Yet it is blamed, and is called unjust by the voice of Midas alone. But the Delian {God} does not allow his stupid ears to retain their human shape: but draws them out to a {great} length, and he fills them with grey hairs, and makes them unsteady at the lower part, and gives them the power of moving. The rest {of his body} is that of a man; in one part alone is he condemned {to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... have brought to bear, and your skill in marshalling them and throwing them on the enemy; it is also extremely clear as far as I have gone, but very hard to fully appreciate. Somehow it reads very different from the MS., and I often fancy I must have been very stupid not to have more fully followed it in MS. Lyell told me of his criticisms. I did not appreciate them all, and there are many little matters I hope one day to talk over with you. I saw a highly flattering notice in the 'English Churchman,' short and not at all entering into discussion, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... out, "Ho, hop!" and immediately a voice from the woods near by answered, "ho, hop!" Being surprised at this, he called out, "who be you?" The voice answered, "who be you." Charles thought this very strange, and cried out "you're a stupid fellow," and "stupid fellow," was the reply from ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... Their valves and pulses were all right. They could play the game without the slightest danger of any inconvenient result;—of any inconvenient result, that is, as regarded their own feelings. Blind people cannot see and stupid people cannot understand—and it might be that Mr Dobbs Broughton, being both blind and stupid in such matters, might perceive something of the playing of the game and not know that it was ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the intrigue against Sparta. He can dupe stupid people like the Thebans, or the Peloponnesians; warning therefore is necessary. To the ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... across people who are, on my honor, too stupid by half," cried Derville. "They don't deserve to be Christians! Be humane, generous, philanthropical, and a lawyer, and you are bound to be cheated! There is a piece of business that will ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... a stupid young woman; his very indifference told her all that she needed to know. She tore her eyes from the confused jumble of gesticulating men and restive steeds to look sharply at Chip. He met her eyes squarely for an instant, and the horror oozed from her and left only amused ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... write and read German in the very quickest way ever found out, though he does not know a single letter of the alphabet, can in a short time get enough here to cast up his own accounts and read; and if any one be too stupid to learn, as I have taught him nothing so will I charge him nothing, be he who he may, burgher or apprentice, woman or girl; whoever comes in, he will be faithfully taught for a small sum, but the young boys and girls after the Ember weeks, as the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... the child were a calf! I'm sure and certain that the extreme dulness of young people of the present day is entirely owing to vaccination—it imbues them with a very stupid portion of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... are going to sermonize me, the moment is ill chosen," replied the lieutenant, sulkily. "I know perfectly that I have done a stupid thing, and am in for a lecture from my papa. I do not wish to hear from another what I must ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Don't be stupid, Dick. Of course he hasn't said a word; I believe he's engaged to somebody; I thought so from something he said a little while ago. The idea of me marrying a ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Hawthorne came home this afternoon, he said he met on the other side the children of the Industrial School just landed. He saw them face to face, and he said their faces were uncomely to the last degree. He said he never imagined such faces,—so irredeemably stupid and homely. I do not think I have realized the sin of the Old World in any way so much as in a few faces I saw in Liverpool. It made me shiver and contract to look at them,—so haggard, so without hope or faith, or any sign of humanity. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... stupid old hippo, who usually wanted nothing more than his grub and his bath, lumbered around looking for further trouble. He found it; he interfered between the wild asses and the zebras, and soon the whole bunch, both sides, were bombarding him with ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... "Stupid! Don't you see, Mamma mustn't know I have one, and so no one else must, either. Honestly, you're the only one within the charmed circle up to now. Listen! I've taken a studio in MacDougall alley under the name of Mary Allen. No one must know but what a real Mary ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... go," she said, "if I'm to get any dinner before the theatre. I would have liked to stay, and put my poor little understudy on, so as to give her a chance. She's a nice little girl—not half stupid, and really keen to learn and to work. But I can't. I'm in honour bound to appear to-night. You see, it's our second century—the first one we could not observe, because it came at the end of January just in the general mourning—so there's an awful to-do and tomasha to-night, souvenir programmes ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... lapsed. Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech Among the silly, not the serious Greeks Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone That to bewonder and adore which hides Beneath distorted words, holding that true Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears, Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase. For how, I ask, can things so varied be, If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit 'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned, If all the parts of fire did still preserve But fire's own nature, seen before in ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... the station-master's office," the latter continued, "and tried to persuade them to let me ride in the guard's van of your special, but he made a stupid fuss about it, so I thought I'd better come to you. Can I beg a seat in your compartment, or anywhere in the train, ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... after reading pages about it in the papers and hearing people speak of Dinard as Mohammedans whisper sacredly of Mecca, is like meeting celebrities. You wonder what under the sun—what in the world—how in the name of Heaven such ugly, stupid, uninteresting, heavy, dull, and insufferably ordinary persons are allowed to become famous by an overruling and beneficent Providence! I have met many celebrities, and I have been to Dinard. I have had ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... has there been such imbecility displayed in waging it as we have contrived to display in our attacks on the enemies of the Union. It used to be supposed that Austria was the slowest and the most stupid of military countries; but America has got ahead of Austria in the art of doing nothing—or worse than nothing—with myriads of men and millions of money. We stand before the world a people to whom military success seems seldom possible, and, when possible, rarely useful. If we win a victory, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... very big and blubbering, show a person to be credulous, foolish, dull and stupid, and apt to be enticed to anything. Lips of a different size denote a person to be discreet, secret in all things, judicious and of a good wit, but somewhat hasty. To have lips, well coloured and more thin than thick, shows a person to be good-humoured in all things and more easily persuaded ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... it's all the same,' went on Ella, with an impatient shrug of her shoulder. 'But nobody did. There were no geniuses except Columbus, and he thought, "People are stupid not to go to America, but I will show them the way." What did he go ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... one of the altars. The tufts of red feathers are at the feet, and rolls of cloth at the head. After this, for a quarter of an hour or more the chief priest addresses it, and pretends to give the message it is to convey to the world of spirits. The surrounding populace look on with stupid amazement, no one knowing whose turn it may be next to be slaughtered as a sacrifice ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... stupid old Trinities—as I left them long ago," said old Likeman, with his lean hand feeling and clawing at the arm ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... you please, Miss Louisa," Sissy pleaded, "I am—Oh so stupid! All through school hours I make mistakes. To-day for instance, Mr. M'Choakumchild was explaining ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to be right when he said, "See, my son, how little wisdom it requires to govern States,"—that is, Men! That so many millions of persons, each with a profound assurance that he is possessed of an exalted sagacity, should concur in the ascendancy of a few inferior intellects, according to a few stupid, prosy, matter-of-fact rules as old as the hills, is a phenomenon very discreditable to the spirit and energy of the aggregate human species! It creates no surprise that one sensible watch-dog should ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rests upon the illusion that sensual pleasures possess a positive or real value. Accordingly, future need and misery is the price at which the spendthrift purchases pleasures that are empty, fleeting, and often no more than imaginary; or else feeds his vain, stupid self-conceit on the bows and scrapes of parasites who laugh at him in secret, or on the gaze of the mob and those who envy his magnificence. We should, therefore, shun the spendthrift as though he had the plague, and on discovering his vice break with ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... were read there; English laws were obeyed there; English habits were cultivated, often at the expense of American comfort. And yet it was the fashion among orators to speak of the English as a worn-out, stupid and enslaved people. He was a thoughtful man and all this had perplexed him;—so that he had obtained leave from his State and from Congress to be absent during a part of a short Session, and had come ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... years ago that this part of the country was seized by the British without bloodshed, and the foolish and dissolute King Theebaw was made prisoner for his stupid insolence, and deported, with his two wives, to India, where they are still spending their days in retirement. Upper Burma has, however, put on new beauty and prosperity since the British have taken it over; and the people are abundantly satisfied with the new regime. Mandalay ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... soldier seemed an angel of mercy, as the hope of rescue sprang up again in her heart. But he is coming near, and she must not let the chance slip. How should she hail him? In what words make known her peril? She felt stupid, just when she needed her readiest wit. He was almost abreast the vessel before Dexie found her voice, and then in frightened tones ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... his mind the memory of a quaint scene in the Soudan. A soldier had been nearly hacked in two by a broad-bladed Arab spear. For one instant the man felt no pain. Looking down, he saw that his life-blood was going from him. The stupid bewilderment on his face was so intensely comic that both Dick and Torpenhow, still panting and unstrung from a fight for life, had roared with laughter, in which the man seemed as if he would join, but, as his lips parted in a sheepish grin, the agony of death came upon him, and he ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... "I had a stupid sort of idea that you were mixed up in the business somehow. I thought so even before I saw the sketch, because I couldn't understand whom else she could have been looking for at the dock. It's ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... You are angry, and when you are angry you are stupid. I carried that girl in my arms when she was a baby! I have watched over her ever since. A wench! Not one of your own daughters has a heart so white. If Vittorio is so great a coward as to listen to their talk I'll ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and to be unable to understand the meaning of religious ceremonies. Merker, who observed him secretly during the early days which he spent in jail, declared that he was "in all respects like a child." Meyer, of the school at Ansbach, found him "idle, stupid, and vain." Dr. Osterhausen found a deviation from the normal in the shape of his legs, which made walking difficult, but Caspar never ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... chests Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins (Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines,[lg] But) of fine unclipped gold, where dully rests Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp!— Yes! ready money is ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... conveyed this lyric to Thomson, "gravel me to death: I have not that command of the language that I have of my native tongue. I have been at 'Duncan Gray,' to dress it in English, but all I can do is deplorably stupid. For instance:"] ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... unversed in Common-sense. His nature was more calm and normal than Shaftesbury's, but in their intellectual conclusions they were not dissimilar. The views about the common people which Sir William Berkeley expressed with stupid brutality, they stated with punctual elegance. They were well mated for the purpose in hand, and they performed it with due deliberation and sobriety. It was not until five years after the grant was made that the constitution was written and sealed. It achieved an ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Robin would bring some stupid thing from Zennor," she would say, and she would scowl at Cherry until the girl grew quite nervous. She tried to get as far away from the old woman as she could, but, as Cherry said, the old soul seemed ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... say the flats are in the right of it," said her husband, when she denounced their stupid inadequacy to the purposes of a Christian home. "But I'm not so sure that we are, either. I've been thinking about that home business ever since my sensibilities were dragged—in a coupe—through that tenement-house street. Of course, no child born and brought up in such a place as that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... calumniators have dared to say that he rejoiced at an event, which, even considered apart from its political relations, caused him to lose a conquest which had cost him so much, and France so much blood and expense. Other miserable wretches, still more stupid and more infamous, have even gone so far as to fabricate and spread abroad the report that the First Consul had himself ordered the assassination of his companion in arms, whom he had placed in his own position at the head of the army ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the Bold, was one of those who could see beyond his time, and who became almost prophetically wise; that is to say, he was fond of tracing causes onwards to their probable effects, to the amusement of the humorous, the amazement of the stupid, and the horrification of the few who, even in those days of turmoil, trembled at the idea of "change"! Everything, therefore, that came under his observation claimed and obtained his earnest attention, and was treated with a species of inductive philosophy that would ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... a stupid convention he would destroy this beautiful thing you have made! Does he know your work? Does he know what you are to the men here? Have you ever ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the United States. Sir, I deny that there is an acknowledged departure, or any departure at all, from the neutral policy of the country. What do we mean by our neutral policy? Not, I suppose, a blind and stupid indifference to whatever is passing around us; not a total disregard to approaching events, or approaching evils, till they meet us full in the face. Nor do we mean, by our neutral policy, that ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... they want the reward of those who work well. The hope of mankind—what is it? That some day the Over-man may come, that some day the inferior, the weak and the bestial may be subdued or eliminated. Subdued if not eliminated. The world is no place for the bad, the stupid, the enervated. Their duty—it's a fine duty too!—is to die. The death of the failure! That is the path by which the beast rose to manhood, by which man goes ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... that she would move on. Nearly all the busy people of the Exhibition called her either Aunty or Grandma at once, and made little pleasures for her as best they could. She was a delightful contrast to the indifferent, stupid crowd that drifted along, with eyes fixed at the same level, and seeing, even on that level, nothing for fifty feet at a time. "What be you making here, dear?" Betsey Lane would ask joyfully, and the most perfunctory guardian ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria—but Athens, shall Athens sink, Drop into dust and die—the flower of Hellas utterly die, Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by? Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink? How—when? No care for my limbs!—there's lightning in all and some— Fresh and fit your message to bear, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... titled chief. Various sick and wounded officers died in consequence of not having been removed in sufficient time to the Bosphorus, or to such other quarters as were not only possible, but convenient, had it not been for the heartless and stupid routine by which the heads of departments, at home and abroad, civil and military, were guided. It was the more remarkable that so few officers died in the camp in proportion to the men who perished, as the proportions were reversed in combat. The facts were, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Philosophers of Violence want, is it? Well, you will not get it. My father, the Amphib King, will not be so stupid as to ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... ugly and freckledy and small And have a little stubby nose that's not a nose at all; You may be bad at spelling and you may be worse at sums, You may have stupid fingers that your Nanna says are thumbs, And lots of things you look for you may never, never find, But if you love the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... simpler, instead of explaining, to take the book itself out to him and let him have wisdom at its very source, administering it in doses while he worked. I quite recognise that this must be annoying, and only my anxiety not to lose a whole year through some stupid mistake has given me the courage to do it. I laugh sometimes behind the book at his disgusted face, and wish we could be photographed, so that I may be reminded in twenty years' time, when the garden is a ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... come along, and scenting something good to eat, proceed to fill up on the dosed stuff. It seems pretty hard to take advantage of a weakness that they appear to have in common with the other branch of the two-legged family, don't it? But every time they get so stupid that they stagger all around, and seem to lose all fear of mankind. Then one of the watchers will step out, take hold of a monkey's hand, and lead a whole string of them away, each trying to support the others. And so they ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... own position, Horsley cites numerous passages from the ante-Nicene fathers. He contends that in the famous passage of Tertullian on which Priestley had laid so much stress, Tertullian meant by 'idiotae,' not the general body of unlearned Christians, but some stupid people who could not accept the great mystery which was generally accepted by the Church. He shows that the Jews in Christ's time did believe in a Trinity, and expected the Second Person to come as their Messiah. He maintains that when Athanasius spoke of Jews who held the simple humanity ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... cream-of-tartar and the result is internal riot. "And a leetle spice to kill the bitter of the taste ought to work all right," he soliloquized. Then he remembered Chance. Loring had left to oversee the establishment of an outlying camp. The Mexican who assisted Sundown seemed stupid and sullen. Sundown found excuse to enter his bedroom, where he hastily scrawled a note to Corliss. Later he tied the note to the inside of the dog's collar. The next thing was to get Chance started on the road to ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... prosecutor to proceed, hoping that as the latter was also a man, he, too, might feel inclined to smoke or dine, and show some mercy on the rest. But the public prosecutor showed mercy neither to himself nor to any one else. He was very stupid by nature, but, besides this, he had had the misfortune of finishing school with a gold medal and of receiving a reward for his essay on "Servitude" when studying Roman Law at the University, and was therefore self-confident and self-satisfied in the highest degree (his success ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... your train should be allowed to wander till all were safe within these gates, for I well knew that, did but a whisper of my humble invitation and your gracious acceptance of the same reach Treves, it might be misconstrued; and although some sturdy fellows would be true, and beat their stupid heads against these walls, the rest would scatter like a sheaf of arrows suddenly unloosed, and seek the strongest arm upraised in the melee sure to follow. Against your army, leaderless, I would ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... paid the full penalty of her stupid acquiescence in the rule of Disraeli and Salisbury; and it will cost her yet far more than she paid for the results of Tory infamy and Whig senility in the "Alabama" business, for she has enemies to deal with who are far ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... Personnel's own midgit-idgit," she replied. "The machine says if anybody is left out, it's not its fault, that it would only be because we stupid humans forgot to inform ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... pleasantly, having no need, as a mere passer-by, to do otherwise, but if I had been obliged to have dealings with them, I should have begun by distrusting them outright. The man was of the common sort of ale-house keeper, ugly, beery, and stupid, and old enough to be the father of his wife, as I call her on account of the wedding ring on her finger. She was, for the place and post, a complete surprise, being a jaunty, townish, garish woman, dressed in decayed finery. He would have slit my throat for a groat, she for a grudge. They ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... know people, Uncle Rod, or am I so dull and stupid that I misunderstand? Men are such a puzzle—all except you, you darling dear—and if you were young and not my uncle, even you might be as much of a puzzle ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... all a satisfactory way on board. The master had died before the ship reached the Cape: the first officer, Mr Gregson, who had now charge, was obstinate and self-opinionated when sober, and he was very frequently intoxicated; the second was a stupid fellow and no navigator; and both were jealous of the third, who was a superior, intelligent young man, and in numerous ways they did their utmost to annoy him. This accounted for the good ship, the Kangaroo, being very much out of her proper course, which was far to the southward ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... still in the studio; for, her troubles over, Bessie's good spirits had returned, and she had persuaded Hugh to give her a sitting in order that she might satisfy a long-cherished desire to paint his portrait. "But what can you make out of my stupid phiz?" ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... folk could. My fader give it me, and his fader give it him, but now who shall I give it to? Poor Martha hab no child, no relation, nobody. All round I see black man very bad man. Black woman very stupid woman. Nobody worthy of the stone. And so I say, Here is Massa Jephson who write books and fight for coloured folk—he must be good man, and he shall have it though he is white man, and nebber can know what it mean or where it came from." Here the old woman fumbled in the chamois ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... say, and then you shall tell me whether you approve of it. You not only came up to, but far surpassed, my most sanguine expectations, and I saw therefore no reason to alter my original intentions. But it is stupid work for a man to wait till all the best days of his life are passed, without funds sufficient to render him independent, to feel all his energies cramped, his talents dwarfed, and his brightest aspirations checked, by a servile dependence on the will and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... he replied slowly, with contracted brow, "you are giving me much to think about. I fear I have been as stupid as I have been bad. My whole life ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... rhetoric of his race, he revealed his ambitions. He was writing a novel which he hoped would make his name. He was under the influence of Zola, and he had set his scene in Paris. He told Philip the story at length. To Philip it seemed crude and stupid; the naive obscenity—c'est la vie, mon cher, c'est la vie, he cried—the naive obscenity served only to emphasise the conventionality of the anecdote. He had written for two years, amid incredible hardships, denying himself all the pleasures ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Fontange was a stupid little creature, but she had a very good heart. She was very red-haired, but, beautiful as an ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... the bottom of the trench with a bullet through his helmet and through his brain. The young officer in command of the listening-post cursed softly. "I'm forever warning the men not to expose themselves," he said irritatedly, "but they forget it the next minute. They're nothing but stupid children." He spoke in much the same tone of annoyance he might have used if the man had been a clumsy servant who had broken a valuable dish. Then he went into the tiny dugout where the telephone was, and rang up the trench commander, and asked him to send out a bearer, ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... yourself; for, really, you are putting forward the most improbable facts without any proof whatever. It's easy enough to say that I stole the notes. And how were you to know that they were here at all? Who brought them here? Why should the murderer choose this flat to hide them in? It's all so stupid, so illogical and absurd!... Give us your proofs, sir ... one ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... with passengers, whose cries and terror augmented the general confusion. Some, struck with a kind of stupor, and clinging convulsively to the shrouds, awaited their doom in a state of stupid insensibility. Others wrung their hands in despair, or rolled upon the deck uttering horrible imprecations. Here, women knelt down to pray; there, others hid their faces in their hands, that they might not see the awful approach of death. A young mother, pale ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... said Bessie. "Mamma has pretty things in the drawing- room, but she keeps them out of the way; and everything here is so dull and stupid!" and the little girl ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that odious little flirt, Baby Blake, a young damsel that hawked her tender affections about at the beck and call of every male biped who might for the moment be enthralled by her charms! It was like his cool impudence. And then, again, his asking me his stupid, inane questions, as if I cared what man, and how many. Lizzie Dangler or any other girl might have "in tow," as he called it. Idiot! I declare to you I positively hated Horner at that moment, inoffensive and harmless ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sense of fairness and vexed him with his cowardly devil of impatience, which kicked at a simply stupid common man, and behaved to a lordly offender, smelling rascal, civilly. Just as her father would have—treated the matter, she said: 'Are we sorry for what has happened, Chillon?' The man had gone, the injustice ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... should be borne with an unaffected heart. O amiable one, if thou abstainest, in even a slight measure, from doing what is agreeable to your wives and children, thou shalt then know who is whose and why so and for what. They that are highly stupid and they that are masters of their souls enjoy happiness here. They however, that occupy an intermediate place suffer misery. This, O Yudhishthira, is what Senajit of great wisdom said, that person who was conversant with what is good or bad in this world, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... noodle story is a droll, or comic story, that follows the fortunes of very simple or stupid characters. There are many noodle stories among the favorites of the folk, and the three immediately following are among the best known. This version of "The Three Sillies" was collected from oral tradition in Suffolk, England. In the original the dangerous tool was an ax, but the collector ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... presenting great variations in climate and in the kind and quality of their soils. Among the Indians upon these several reservations there exist the most marked differences in natural traits and disposition and in their progress toward civilization. While some are lazy, vicious, and stupid, others are industrious, peaceful, and intelligent; while a portion of them are self-supporting and independent, and have so far advanced in civilization that they make their own laws, administered through officers of their own choice, and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... common in the most polished nations and it is common among savage tribes. Profound philosophers have argued in favor of it; poets have sung the objects of this sort of love in their tender and passionate compositions, and these compositions have always been the delight of posterity. What stupid or unfeeling reader can read without emotion that beautiful eclogue of Virgil where Corydon sighs his hopeless love for the beautiful Alexis? The most passionate ode of Horace is that one in which he complains ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... civilization stunted, repressed; he comprehends everything, the honor of the galleys, patriotism, virtue, the malice of a vulgar crime, or the fine astuteness of elegant wickedness. Another is resigned, a perfect mimer, but stupid. All have slight yearnings after order and work, but they are pushed back into their mire by society, which makes no inquiry as to what there may be of great men, poets, intrepid souls, and splendid organizations ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... Collie disappeared beyond the crest of the hill, the colt, who had watched them with absurdly stupid intensity, lowered his head and nibbled indifferently at the grass along the edge of the spring-hole fence. He approached the break and sniffed at the props and network of branches. This was interesting! And a very carelessly constructed piece of fence, indeed! He would ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding onward, high abode them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other motive power than the weight of the carriages ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... that in which we undertake to do it—and shutting them in prison for it, ill treating them and killing them; and whether it is laudable and worthy of a man and a Christian to preach for a salary to the people not Christianity, but superstitions which one knows to be stupid and pernicious; and whether it is laudable and worthy of a man to rob his neighbor for his gratification of what he wants to satisfy his simplest needs, as the great landowners do; or to force him to exhausting labor ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... adventures in the army were so much enjoyed. We have only to repeat that there are few better stories for boys than these of Mr. Adams'. Always bright and even sparkling with animation, the story never drags; there are no stupid tasks or tiresome descriptions; the boys whose characters are drawn are real boys, impulsive, with superabundant animal life, and the heroes are manly, generous, healthy ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... mean, it is more a kind of horrid bear-play? But oh, to think of our Jack cutting off a piece of a man's ear! It almost spoils the beautiful other part of it. No, nothing can spoil that. Dear, delightful, stupid, glorious old Jack! I always knew he had genius. When shall ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... large —the questions, I mean, what is going on in Europe, the literature, the reforms, the politics. I get a wider view when I stand off—at home. I suppose it is more concentrated here. And, oh dear, I'm so stupid! Everybody is so alert in little things, so quick to turn a compliment, and say a bright thing. While I am getting ready to say what I really think about Browning, for instance, he is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of lemons, sitting astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; John Willet, fallen backward in his chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with none of The ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Mr. Harper's seizure, he had stayed behind in the dining-room, drunk himself stupid, and slept himself sober—or partly so. They say drink is a great unfolder of truth; if so, the old lawyer's sharp face betrayed that, in spite of all his past civility, he had not the kindest feeling in the ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... you mean quicker progress?" he asked, so naively that she concluded he was a trifle stupid. The best-looking ones were ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... and the preceding we spent at the Scala. The opera was stupid, and Madame Bellochi, who is the present primadonna, appeared to me harsh and ungraceful, when compared to Fodor. The new ballet however, amply indemnified us for the disappointment. Our Italian friends ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... give me back the days again, When we have wander'd free, And stole the dew from every flower, The fruit from every tree; The friends I loved they will not come, They've all deserted me; They sit at home and toast their toes, Look stupid and sip tea. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sound rattled in the newcomer's throat, and his chin dropped with stupid amazement. For a long moment he stared at her, his pupils dilating and contracting in a strangely fascinating way, and his body beginning slowly to rock from side to side as it had done in the thicket across the road. But just now she was meeting his gaze with a look ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... before the event, had been made dismal by the croaking of Iokanaans, and there was a definite defaitiste party among the intelligentsia. But among the people in general, if there was not optimism, there was at least a sort of resigned indifference, and so things went ahead in the old stupid Spanish way and the structure of society, despite a few gestures of liberalism, remained as it had been for generations. In Spain, of course, there is always a Kulturkampf, as there is in Italy, but during these years it was quiescent. ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... paid Richard a second visit, in company with Miss Pendexter. He was a great deal worse; he lay emaciated, exhausted, and stupid. The issue was doubtful. Gertrude immediately pushed forward to M——, a larger town than her own, sought out a professional nurse, and arranged with him to relieve the old woman from the farm, who was worn out with her vigilance. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... perished. You cannot teach your little goblin-faced boy who sits under the bridge the philosophy of the Hindu ascetic until you have fed and vitalised him, and stretched his poor withered imagination across the fair fields of youth's summer years. Believe me, the humanitarian's calling seems stupid from your point of view because you are born five hundred years before your time. When the Hull-House principles have abolished the poor and the rich, and have transplanted the whole human race far and wide over the hills and valleys of this earth, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... tunnel, Uma keeping tight hold of me, opened my lantern and lit the match. The first length of it burned like a spill of paper, and I stood stupid, watching it burn, and thinking we were going aloft with Tiapolo, which was none of my views. The second took to a better rate, though faster than I cared about; and at that I got my wits again, hauled ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fact that one has no taste for worldly things, but only for heavenly things. Hence this belongs not to worldly but to Divine wisdom, as Gregory declares (Moral. x, 49). Sometimes however it is the result of a man's being simply stupid about everything, as may be seen in idiots, who do not discern what is injurious to them, and this belongs to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... regarding the majority of his kind as sagacious, or even more so than they are, and knowing much, or more than they do,—as is the case with well-disposed people,—Bracciolini, who was far from being of a benevolent nature, fell into the very opposite extreme, of looking upon men as remarkably stupid and ignorant. Nothing is more common than meeting in his works with contemptuous disparagements of his kind; he scoffs at human nature for its deficiency of understanding; he does not hesitate decrying its want of thought, as in his ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Carthaginian, who had raised in arms against Rome first all the west and then all the east, and whose schemes perhaps had been only frustrated by infamous aristocratic policy in the former case, and by stupid court policy in the latter. Antiochus had been obliged to bind himself in the treaty of peace to deliver up Hannibal; but the latter had escaped, first to Crete, then to Bithynia,(8) and now lived at the court of Prusias ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... make it all the worse by being stupid," cried the girl petulantly. "Why can't you be nice, as you used to be before you got this silly ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... one, Bally Dean, tall, bony, and green As green corn in the milk, stood fast at the foot— Stood day after day, as if he'd been put A soldier on guard there did poor Bally Dean. And stupid! God made him so stupid I doubt— But I guess God who made us ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... very kindly, though you found me so stupid and without influence, [4] but you likewise aided in many ways for my worthless sake my mother and sister. And now, since I have not been able to repay you even the one myriadth part of that kindness and pity in which you enveloped me—pity great ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... character) descriptive of the Paris Salon: "There was a Manet or two, a Moreau and a dozen excellent landscapes, but the rest represented the apotheosis of mediocrity. The pictures which Gerome, Cabanel, Bouguereau, and the acolytes of these pastry-cooks exposed were stupid and sterile as church doors." This required courage in 1888. One wonders where Kenyon Cox was at the time! Give this book ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Africa. Somewhat of its present, perhaps, we know, but of its past little. Open an illustrated geography and compare the 'Type of the African Negro,' the bluish-black fellow of the protuberant lips, the flattened nose, the stupid expression and the short curly hair, with the tall bronze figures from Dark Africa with which we have of late become familiar, their almost fine-cut features, slightly arched nose, long hair, etc., and you have an example of the problems pressing for ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... explained with an assumed whimper, "and poor Hans is about distracted. He is afraid to go peddling alone with his secret writ large in both Dutch and English on his foolish face. I have told him I will go lame or no lame. Fortunately he is hard of hearing and stupid as an owl in broad daylight. You might be less like me than you are, and Hans would not know. We have much to be thankful ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... spirit, his transcendent, fiery thoughts, his ardent will, his high calling. Govinda knew: he would not become a common Brahman, not a lazy official in charge of offerings; not a greedy merchant with magic spells; not a vain, vacuous speaker; not a mean, deceitful priest; and also not a decent, stupid sheep in the herd of the many. No, and he, Govinda, as well did not want to become one of those, not one of those tens of thousands of Brahmans. He wanted to follow Siddhartha, the beloved, the splendid. And in days to come, when ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... still she would not be dismayed. The letters were hers, were they not? They had been stolen from her, he had no right title to them who had purchased only the picture which had served as their hiding-place. By all means, let him keep that stupid canvas; he could hardly refuse to let her have her letters, not if she pleaded her prettiest. And even if he should prove ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... "I understand. Precious stupid of me to talk like that and make a fuss about being off duty for a few days, when you're in for it for weeks. But I say, you know, you are a lot better. Old Morton ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... the occurrence of the inexplicable gallery, I did not reason at all. I stood there, stupid, before the apparition—so pale and so beautiful—of Mademoiselle Stangerson. She was clad in a dressing-gown of dreamy white. One might have taken her to be a ghost—a lovely phantom. Her father took her in his arms and kissed her passionately, as ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... voracious maw! Still, I have never yet been willing to destroy a bird, because of its fondness for bees; and I advise all lovers of bees to have nothing to do with such foolish practices. Unless we can check among our people, the stupid, as well as inhuman custom of destroying so wantonly, on any pretence, and often on none at all, the insectivorous birds, we shall soon, not only be deprived of their aerial melody, among the leafy branches, but shall lament ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... Thomas forty pound, and is therefore under his thumb, forthwith refused the company license to play in Stratford guildhall, inn-yard, or common. And at that the master-player threw his glove into Master Stubbes's face, and called Sir Thomas a stupid old bell-wether, and Stratford burgesses silly sheep for following wherever he chose ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... to discredit this statement. He argues that Malalas tells foolish stories about other matters, and, therefore, is not to be believed here; but so simple a piece of information may well be correctly conveyed by a writer who elsewhere may record stupid traditions. [109:2] If the narrative of foolish stories and fabulous traditions is to exclude belief in everything else stated by those who relate them, the whole of the Fathers are disposed of at one fell swoop, for they all do so. Dr. Lightfoot also assert that the theory ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... pardons," said he humbly; "but you will, I am sure, forgive me when I tell you that I was stupid enough to mistake you for the fugitive Englishman, whom the gens-d'armes are in pursuit of. How ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... encouragement to come out openly on his side. They were Germans who lay on Burgoyne's left and Burgoyne sent Colonel Baum, an efficient officer, with five or six hundred men to attack the New Englanders and bring in the supplies. It was a stupid blunder to send Germans among a people specially incensed against the use of these mercenaries. There was no surprise. Many professing loyalists, seemingly eager to take the oath of allegiance, met and delayed Baum. When near Bennington he found in front of him a force barring the way ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... their utmost quickness and perfection—suppose him likewise, if you please, nimble and active, nay, give him riches, honors, authority, power, glory—now, I say, should this person, who is in possession of all these, be unjust, intemperate, timid, stupid, or an idiot—could you hesitate to call such a one miserable? What, then, are those goods in the possession of which you may be very miserable? Let us see if a happy life is not made up of parts of the same nature, as a heap implies a quantity of grain of the same ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... her knitting and went to meet her, and Elizabeth was pleased and flattered by her protegee's complaints and welcomes. "I thought you would never send me a message or a letter," almost sobbed Denas. "I never hoped you would come. O Elizabeth, how I have longed to see you! Life is so stupid when I cannot ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... silent for a minute, looking straight at the prisoner. Father Milon stood impassive, with the stupid look of the peasant, his eyes lowered as though he were talking to the priest. Just one thing betrayed an uneasy mind; he was continually swallowing his saliva, with a visible effort, as though his ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs more rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be very stupid in Paris. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The sight of the woman we love is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt, ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... stolidity, the Indian is not so stupid as to be misled by talk like this. With a full knowledge of the situation— forced upon him by various events—the badinage of the brilliant militario does not for a moment blind him. Circumstances have given ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... sending for Dr. Graham after all he had had to vex him. It must have been quite a long while after, so soundly had Plume slept, when she bent over him and said something was amiss and Mr. Doty was at the front door waiting for him to come down. He felt oddly numb and heavy and stupid as he hastily dressed, but Doty's tidings, that Mullins had been stabbed on post, pulled him together, as it were, and, merely running back to his room for his canvas shoes, he was speedily at the scene. ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... hounds from the plantation house followed hard on my track. I managed, by some tall running, to come in a few feet ahead, and bolted into the shanty without warning or formality, slamming the door behind me to keep out the dogs. A great stupid negro was standing before the fire, his hands and face buried in fresh pork and hoe-cake, which he was making poor work at eating. His broad, fat countenance glistened with an unguent distilled partly from ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... joined a party of pleasure-seekers and we visited some spot made sacred by tender associations I became stupid, went off by myself, looked gloomily at the trees and bushes as though I would like to crush them under my feet. Upon my return I would ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... could I be so stupid? But it is two long years since I laid eyes on Bond Street. A humbler person, plain Mrs. Barclay, sends out my gowns. What do you think, dear Miss Percy, shall I look provincial, second-rate, amongst all ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton |
