"Stupid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the great issue of that day. The majority of the Parliament, both Lords and Commons,—sustained by King George III., one of the most narrow-minded, obstinate, and stupid princes who ever reigned in England; who believed in an absolute jurisdiction over the colonies as an integral part of the empire, and was bent not only in enforcing this jurisdiction, but also resorted to the most offensive and impolitic measures ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... editor for the Queen's taxes, could get nothing out of our respected friend, but "Ride a cock-horse to Bamberry Cross!" If taxgatherers were not at once the most vindictive and the most stupid of men (it is said Sir ROBERT has ordered them to be very carnivorous this Christmas), the fellow would never have called in a broker to alarm our excellent coadjutor, but would at once have seen that the genius of the Athenaeum was taking his turn in Buckingham Palace, singing a nursery canzonetta ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... had been sitting, "don't you remember old Betty? They all said in the village you'd be too proud to look on your grandmother's grave; but you're not, I see. Well, that's good—that's good. We had a funeral last week, and the vault of the old earl was broken in. The stupid sexton stuck his pick in amongst the old bricks, and so the great man's skull came tumbling out, and rolled beside the skull of Job Martin, the old cobbler; and the sexton laid them both on the edge of the ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... has distended the bladder beyond its power of resistance and a rupture occurs, allowing the urine to escape into the cavity of the abdomen. Then dullness increases; the animal lies down most of his time; he becomes stupid and sometimes drowsy, with reddish-brown congestion of the lining membrane of the eyelids; pressure on the abdomen causes pain, flinching, and perhaps groaning, and the lowest part of the belly fluctuates more and more as the escaping urine accumulates ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... stagger ashore as they might. His arm seemed still to sustain that elastic weight, and a voice haunted his ear with the words, "A pair of disappointed lovers, I suppose"; and still more awkward and stupid he felt his own part in the affair to be; though at the same time he was not without some obscure resentment of the young girl's mistake as an intrusion ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... said of a great author, or a great actress, that they are very stupid people in private. But he was a fool that said so. Tell me your company, and I'll tell you your manners. In conversation, as in other things, the action and reaction should bear a certain proportion to each other.—Authors ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was wondering where I'd heard your name before, when your sister happened to say you were Captain Rainham," said the big man. "How stupid of me—of course, I met Harran at my club this week, and he told me about you." He held out his hand, and took Bob's warmly; then he turned to his daughter. "Norah, it's lucky that we have made friends with ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... themselves; which we too have to ask, and answer. This wild man felt it to be of infinite moment; all other things of no moment whatever in comparison. The jargon of argumentative Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine of Arab Idolatry: there was no answer in these. A Hero, as I repeat, has this first distinction, which indeed we may call first and last, the Alpha and Omega of his whole Heroism, that he looks through the ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... English and the Germans; those of the Belgians were with the French. Moreover, the Dutch were inclined to act oppressively toward the Belgians, and this disposition was made the more irksome by the fact that King William was a dull, stupid, narrow and very obstinate sovereign, who thought that to have a request made of him was reason sufficient ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... themselves for a time raised above the daily cares, the troubles, and the sorrows of life. As the drama, with the arts which are subservient to it, may, from neglect and the mutual contempt of artists and the public, so far degenerate, as to become nothing better than a trivial and stupid amusement, and even a downright waste of time, we conceive that we are attempting something more than a passing entertainment, if we propose to enter on a consideration of the works produced by the most distinguished ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and stupid fellow and, never doubting the fox, hied him off to the lake. Sure enough the water had once more frozen over, but, finding a hole, he thrust in his tail and rammed it through, and sat down to wait till ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... we flattered ourselves at the time) that Mr Jarman was the cause of all this state of things, let me tell him he is as stupid as we ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... any book they were reading, but it mattered little more what it was, for even a stupid book served as well as another to set their own fountains flowing. That afternoon Joan was reading from one partly written, partly compiled, in the beginning of the century, somewhat before its time in England. It might have been the work of an imitator at once ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... The stupid man opened his lips a little, and stood staring at her with hungry eyes, wondering if it were really possible that she did not hear the pounding of his heart; and then his teeth clicked, and ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... ever in her remembrance, devoutly wished that he would rouse himself, and make some conversation. She did all she could, in the way of supplying the guest with eatables, and making little remarks upon them, to fill up awkward pauses; but she was conscious she was being stupid; and even when she thought of a good thing to say, the reflection that it must needs be shouted aloud made her pause until the available moment had gone by. It was some relief that Bressant ate well, and seemed ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... implie such a life and spirit, you must acknowledge the same to be also in the most stupid of all living creatures, even the fishes (whose soul is but as salt to keep them from stinking, as Philo speaks) for they are said to be nishmat chayim chap. 1. v. 20. 21. See 1 Cor. chap. 15, v. 45, 46. In brief therefore, that which in Platonisme is nous, is in Scripture ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... Spectator said wittily, ought to be practised in sober sadness by old folks: when he was dull, he declared it was by design. So far, to be sure, we ought to observe it, as not to affect more spirits than we possess. To be purposely stupid, would be forbidding our correspondents to continue the intercourse; and I am so happy in enjoying the honour of your lordship's friendship, that I will be content (if you can be so) with my natural inanity, without studying ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... fuming, and saying a lot of hard things, as though some of the stupid acts of the army of supers nearly drove him distracted. By degrees he managed to whip his forces into the shape he wanted before he gave the warning signal that the fun was ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... stupid!" said the admiral; "doctor, doctor, you talked of us making two mistakes; but you forgot a third and worse one still, and that was the bringing such a lubberly son of a sea-cook into the place as ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... note. bizarria bravery. blanco white. blancura whiteness. blandir to brandish. blando soft, smooth. blanquear to whiten, whitewash. blanquecino whitish. blasfemar to blaspheme. blasfemia blasphemy. bobo stupid, silly. boca mouth. bola ball, globe. boleta soldier's billet. bolsillo pocket, purse. bondadoso kindly. Bonifacio Boniface. bonito pretty. boqueron m. anchovy. boquete m. gap, narrow entrance. bordar to embroider. bordo ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... the shadow of a mourner falling upon a person would make him sick. Amongst the Kurnai of Victoria novices at initiation were cautioned not to let a woman's shadow fall across them, as this would make them thin, lazy, and stupid. An Australian native is said to have once nearly died of fright because the shadow of his mother-in-law fell on his legs as he lay asleep under a tree. The awe and dread with which the untutored savage contemplates ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... cry; a loss of consciousness, a moment of rigidity, and violent convulsions follow. There is foaming at the mouth, the eyes are rolled up, and the tongue or lips are often bitten. When the fit is over the patient remains in a dazed, stupid state for some time. It is a mistake to struggle with such patients, or to hold them down and keep them quiet. It ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... always; and He shows her what is best,' said the child, looking at him wistfully. Again he thought of his pious prayerful mother. She might have spoken through the childish lips. He closed his books, remarking that they were stupid. Jay gave him her hand to walk up and down the deck. He had never made it a custom to consult God, or refer to Him in matters of daily life, though theoretically he acknowledged His pervading sovereignty. To procure the guidance of Infinite Wisdom would be well worth a prayer. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... stupid and unsuspecting at first, presently began to get a little wisdom. He remembered that all this trouble had commenced when the strange white bird first arrived in the forest; and although it was doubtless true that white birds never eat ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... supposed to be. Education, as you have heard, I had none; and all the little scenes of life I had passed through had been full of dangers and desperate circumstances; but I was either so young or so stupid, that I escaped the grief and anxiety of them, for want of having a sense of their tendency ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... what hornet's nest your stupid people have blundered? How much d'ye think their lives are worth, just now? Not a brass farthing if the breeze fails me for another twenty-four hours. You may well open your eyes. It is so! And it may be too late now, while I am arguing with ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... I found that out from the porter, though the blessed old buffer can't speak anything but his French gibberish. 'Madame?' I said, bawling into his stupid old ear. 'Mossoo and Madame Hostin? comprenny?' and he says, 'Ya-ase,' and then bursts out laughing, and looks as proud as a hen that's just laid a hegg—' Ya-ase, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... match to light a cigarette, but I had none, and said that I also wanted one. In a few minutes she brought me a match, and then she recommenced her tireless weaving of six vile words into hundreds of stupid sentences. ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... lady," said that functionary, as Dorothy entered. "That stupid old horse of his threw him against a tree, and we cannot find Sir Benedict anywhere; the poor father is bleeding to death. He's dying, my lady, dying; what will the baron ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... Don't be so stupid. We must be near the shore. I don't believe there would be a shallow place like that ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... corporation, from the Rio Grande to the capital; but the National line between the capital and Vera Cruz is not able to make use of this greater safeguard and economical air-brake, because a lot of stupid, ignorant ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... when did you bathe the more quietly; when did you perform your exercises the more at your leisure; in short, which life would you rather wish to live—your present, or the former? I could swear there is no one so stupid and insensible as not to deplore his miseries, in proportion as he is the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... to most, that wine and much flesh-eating make the body indeed strong and lusty, but the mind weak and feeble. And that I may not offend the wrestlers, I will make use of examples out of my own country. The Athenians are wont to call us Boeotians gross, senseless, and stupid fellows, for no other reason but our over-much eating; by Pindar we are called hogs, for the same reason. Menander the comedian calls us "fellows with long jaws." It is observed also that, according to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... a special place in my heart for those poor little creatures who figure in circuses and shows, or elsewhere, as "infant prodigies." Heaven help such little folk! It was an unkind fate that did not make them commonplace, stupid, happy girls and boys like our own Fannys and Charleys and Harrys. Poor little waifs, that never know any babyhood or childhood—sad human midges, that flutter for a moment in the glare of the gaslights, ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in the labors of the field, cultivating sorgho, a kind of millet which forms the chief basis of their diet; and the most stupid expressions of astonishment ensued as the Victoria sped past like a meteor. That evening the balloon halted about forty miles from Yola, and ahead of it, but in the distance, rose the two sharp cones of ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Caesar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... henchman, Red Roy—"this would not have happened. Who could have thought that a man of your years could have suffered himself to be fooled by a boy, and to bring me tales that this insolent upstart was a poor stupid lout! By Heavens! to be thus badly served is enough to make ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... old eagles would become alarmed and suspicious, and we would fail in capturing them. The rope, such as it was, held me all right, and landed near the nest. The young birds were so gorged with the flesh of the mountain lamb that they were very stupid, and hardly stirred. I set to work as speedily as possible to arrange the snares, so that the eagles would step into them. As they were all constructed on the running noose principle we knew that they would quickly tighten around ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... years I have heard it applied only to the discharged invalided pensioners of the army. On a late Queen's birthday review on the Green, the boys and girls were in ecstasies at seeing the "old fogies" dressed out in new suits. It is very often spoken derisively to a thick-headed stupid person, but which cannot ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... he had assumed the innocent air of a rustic, and tried to make himself appear as stupid as he could. The two men in the red car were no longer calling, for they had seen that the boy on the road showed no ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Leslies, but they had been long since sold. The vicarage, still in their gift, might be worth a little more than L100 a year. The present incumbent had nothing else to live upon. He was a good man, and not originally a stupid one; but penury and the anxious cares for wife and family, combined with what may be called solitary confinement for the cultivated mind, when, amidst the two legged creatures round, it sees no other cultivated mind with which it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... been known to make his home in a hole dug by Benny Badger. And, though they never took the trouble to thank him for saving them work, they often chuckled about his odd way of having fun, and remarked among themselves that Benny must be a stupid fellow. ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... was not cool enough to reflect that it was waste of trouble to try to choose his words, since if Lucia accepted him she would for ever think them eloquent; and if she refused him, would be certain to consider them stupid. She, on the other hand, was in unusually high spirits. It had occurred to her that Lady Dighton, who seemed to know everybody, would probably know Percy. She had begun already to lay deep plans for finding out if this ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... covers the smooth slope of the approach. You enter your hotel through mahogany revolving doors. A colossal Flora stands by the lift at the foot of the big staircase. Unaware that this is no festival of flowers, the poor stupid thing leans forward, smiling, and holds out her garland to the wounded as they are carried past. Nobody takes any notice of her. The great hall of the hotel has been stripped bare. All draperies ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... the waiter, Hesden," said his mother, reprovingly, "and raise her head. Don't you see that Miss Ainslie cannot drink lying there. I never saw you so stupid, my son. I shall have to grow worse again soon to keep you from getting out ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... different in precision and power from what they purposed to rely on. But the combination of patient and careful industry, with the courage and divination of genius, in doing what none had done before, makes it equally stupid and idle to impeach ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... at table with stupid hands and evasive eyes. Little Johnny, who was, as Polly put it, "as sharp as mustard," was prompt to note his ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... melancholy, disappointed, angry stung to the soul by calumnies as stupid as they were venomous, and already afflicted with a painful and lingering disease, which his friends attributed to poison administered by command of the master whom he had so faithfully served—determined, if possible, to afford the consolation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... This awful pride! But listen, Mariana, listen to me," she added, suddenly changing her tone. She wanted to draw Mariana nearer to herself, but the latter stepped back a pace. "Ecoutez-moi, je vous en conjure! After all, I am not so old nor so stupid that it should be impossible for us to understand each other! Je ne suis pas une encroutee. I was even considered a republican as a girl.. no less than you. Listen, I won't pretend that I ever had any motherly feeling towards ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... given to long consultations behind the woodshed. When they were permitted to visit Mr. Kincaid at the jail, they tried mysteriously to convey assurance of absolute secrecy, but succeeded only in appearing stupid, frivolous and unsympathetic. Nevertheless their concern was very real. Bobby in especial brooded over the affair to the exclusion of all other interests. The Flobert rifle was laid away, the printing press gathered ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... his free arm violently—even the Gladstone bag swung to and fro; he punctuated his sentences with sharp, angry nods of the head, insisting and protesting and insisting, while the other, saying much less, maintained his damnable stupid disdainful grin. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... levelled, and a noble bridge now spans its rapid waters. It has seen the destruction of two log-bridges, but this new, substantial, imposing structure bids fair to stand from generation to generation. The Indian regards it with stupid wonder: he is no mechanic; his simple canoe of birch bark is his only notion of communication from one shore to another. The towns-people and country settlers view it with pride and satisfaction, as a means of commerce ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... I were only well, how I would beat that stupid boy!" exclaimed the king, in a loud, menacing voice. "Hacke, have the kindness to beat ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Would they ever, ever, reach the top? And when they should, there would be another hamlet in a valley, another bridge, more stupid people who could not speak English, more villages, more bends in the road, still other ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Thank God, I belong to a race that is full of primitive instincts! Poor old England still barges in whenever there is a fight going on, and gets her head knocked, and goes on fighting just the same, and never knows that she is heroic, but blunders on—simple-hearted, stupid, sublime! ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... am not in a talking humour," she answered. "My head aches, and I shall be glad to get to bed. It was a stupid, humdrum evening" ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... great satisfaction. I said nothing, feeling half stupid with amazement, for the man apparently told it in the full conviction that it was true, while the other listeners appeared to accept every word of it with the most implicit faith. I began to feel very melancholy, for evidently they expected something from me now, and what to ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Pauline cheerfully. "One of the very nicest girls I ever knew was a maid Mother had the last year of her dear life. I loved that girl, Aunt Olivia, and I correspond with her. She writes letters that are ten times more clever and entertaining than those stupid epistles Clarisse Gray sends me—and Clarisse Gray is a rich man's daughter and is being educated ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... poacher turned gamekeeper. A few months ago, as leader of the Labour Party, he was instant in criticism of the ineptitutes of Government officials. This afternoon, upon his old friend, Mr. TYSON WILSON, venturing to refer to the "stupid decisions" of the Board of Trade, Mr. WARDLE was down on him in a moment. With the air of one who had been born and brought up in Whitehall Gardens, he replied, "Stupid decisions are not made by the Board ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... "Am I unusually stupid, or are you rapt, beyond the realm of reason and mid-day common sense? Pray what is the fascination? It is neither so vast, nor so picturesque as the Colosseum. There, one expects to hear the roar of the beasts springing on their human prey; the ring of steel on steel, when the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "Another stupid!" said Rose. "Two beautiful and accomplished ladies go to church and give respectability to two of the wild tribe of the West, by marrying them, and they forget it in a ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never brought the man here—I never did like him; and then, too, it is so provoking ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... do," hastily exclaimed Pao-yue. "You stupid thing! gently a bit; is it likely you've never seen any one put one on before? let me do ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Whether we are by nature a more stupid people than the Dutch? And yet whether these things are sufficiently considered ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... Roseville, "has not only the best command of language herself, but she gives language to other people. Dinner parties, usually so stupid, are, at her house, quite delightful. I have actually seen English people look happy, and one or two ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Brunswick, could find nothing wrong in Trenck's cell except the false window frame. The cut chains, though examined, somehow escaped detection, from which we gather either that the officials were very careless, or the carpenter very stupid. Perhaps both may have been the case, for as the Seven Years' War (against Austria) was at this time raging, sentinels and officers were frequently changed, and prison discipline insensibly relaxed. Had this not been so, Trenck could never have been able ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... quite harmless, and only asks to be let alone and allowed to browse on gum-leaves. Its flesh is uneatable except by an aboriginal or a victim to famine. Its fur is difficult to manipulate, as it will not lie flat, so the koala should have been left in peace. But its confiding and somewhat stupid nature, and the senseless desire of small boys and "children of larger growth" to kill something wild just for the sake of killing, has led to the koala being almost exterminated in many places. Now it is protected by the ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... from Ottawa. He would pat the head of the big dog that was always at his heels, throw a coin on the counter, slip his change in his pocket and go out again, as if time had mattered, when, as she knew perfectly well, he really hadn't much to do. The poor fellow, she decided, was really stupid, in spite of ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... forward on his face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow rigid, and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... a boy of quick receptivity as far as books were concerned, and therefore was no favourite with Mr Malison, he was not by any means a common or a stupid boy. His own eyes could teach him more than books could, for he had a very quick observation of things about him, both in what is commonly called nature and in humanity. He knew all the birds, all their habits, and all ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... men behind him, Captain Fitzgerald the other. The most ammunition anyone had, by the way, was a hundred and ten rounds. There was some very stiff fighting for a few minutes, the natives having the best of the position; indeed they might have wiped us out but for their stupid habit of firing on the run, as they charged. Wilson ordered us to retire down the vlei; some hundred yards further on we came to an ant-heap and took our second position on that, and held it for some time. Wilson jumped on the top of the ant-heap and shouted—"Every ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... stupid as it used to be, when everybody said and thought it was as good as possible," replied he. "You see, it's the people in the world that make it stupid. For instance, do you suppose you and I, or anybody, would care for idling about ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... be as stupid as being shut up here in this dreary old nursery—I mean dungeon," said Ginevra. "And now that our cruel gaoler has refused to let us have the small solace of—of a—" she could not find any more imposing word—"doll to play with, I think the time has come ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore oft, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill {330} That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E'en the serpent that slid away silent—he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her beloved master and mistress—either or both—should not have the best of everything and plenty of it is, at this advanced stage in her career, unthinkable. Even though she read it in print she would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... she repeated, bending her head down. "That's nothing. My father is a stupid, coarse man—my brother also—and a drunkard, besides. My oldest sister—unhappy, wretched thing—married a man much older than herself, very rich, a bore and greedy. But my mother I am sorry for! She's a simple woman like you, a beaten-down, frightened creature, so tiny, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... glass blown, Giusippe?" inquired Jean, as they went across the yard. "I hate to ask stupid questions, but you see I do ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the United States. A member of Congress, Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, who was sentenced in the Fall of that year to a fine of $1,000 and four months in jail for writing of the President and Senate, that his message to Congress in 1797 was a bullying speech, which the Senate in a stupid answer had echoed with more servility than ever Geo. III. experienced from either house of parliament, served his time and paid the fine, but for the amount of the latter he was ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... "This stupid insistence upon confining me to manual labor. I'm the single member on Ragnarok of the Athena Planning Board and surely you can see that this bumbling confusion of these people"—Bemmon indicated the hurrying, laboring men, women and children ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... each, containing in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. But I will permit no curtailments.... You shan't make canticles of my cantos. The poem will please, if it is lively; if it is stupid, it will fail; but I will have none of your damned cutting and slashing. If you please, you may publish anonymously; it will perhaps be better; but I will battle my way against them all, like ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... dear Hench, you make no distinctions. I've been talking about the boy's people and his bringing up and the way he acts, whereupon you fly off on a tangent and coolly conclude things about the boy himself. It is not only unkind, but stupid." ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... "How stupid of me!" she said. "I never thought of your mother before; she is the very person. I will meet you to-morrow morning here, Florence, and then you can tell me what you decide. It will be all the better for you if you are wise: all the worse ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... are getting tired and stupid, Ben," said Mrs. Garth, accustomed to these obstructive arguments from her male offspring. Having finished her pies, she moved towards the clothes-horse, and said, "Come here and tell me the story I told you on ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... bored, irritable, or accessory to a hideous pleasantry? Does our fate depend on the happy solution of some petty enigma or childish conundrum, even as our salvation, in most of the so-called revealed religious, is settled by a blind and stupid cast of the die? Is all the liberty that we are granted reduced to the reading of a more or less ingenious riddle? Can the great soul of the universe be the soul of a ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... very tall, strong, and brave, was rather stupid. He seldom spoke, but he was always ready to fight, and the last to retreat. Menelaus was weak of body, but as brave as the best, or more brave, for he had a keen sense of honour, and would attempt what he had not the strength to do. Diomede and ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... the Populists have been advocates of reforms when they could not be accomplished, but when the first ray of light appeared and the people were looking with expectancy and with anxiety for relief, the party was not equal to the occasion; that it was stupid; it was blind; it kept 'the middle of the road,' and ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... by me said as how he must ha' bin taken when the bad news came from India. Another looks so savage, that amost everybody asks him why he don't have it out and done with it! Another werry savage sojer looked at me as much as to say, "What are you staring at, Stupid?" which wasn't at all perlite. Professor HUXLEY, I am told, is a werry great man, and so he most suttenly seems for to think by the looks on him, and ain't he jist got a lot of big books for to read! I was surprised ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... had passed from the stupid to the delirious stage of her fever; and all that night, as he woke or dozed in his little closet close beside his mother's door, poor Teddy's heart ached to hear the wild tones of entreaty, of terror, or of anger, proving to his mind that the delicate child he already loved ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... possible would never make a painter, and that what the old Roman proverb said of the poet, "Non fit sed nascitur poeta," is equally applicable to the painter. I tried it for a short time, at Hanover, but my master told me I was the most awkward and stupid pupil he ever had, and advised me to cut the concern, and I followed his advice; nor am I sorry that I did so, as I should never have been able to draw well, and should have only been discontented, and given it up in disgust. We have, however, two officers ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... chipping of steel on flint, and caught a glimpse of a face. As its lips blew on the tinder this face vanished and reappeared, and at length grew steady in the blue light of the sulphur match. It was not the face, however, on which my eyes rested in a stupid wonder, but the collar below it—the scarlet collar and ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... explain? . . . Well, I must tell you. You must forgive me somehow! I tried—don't look at me while I say it—I have tried to interfere with YOU. I tried to make a friend of you; and then when you came to Cambridge, I saw I had claimed too much; that your place was not with such as myself—the old, stupid, battered generation, fit for nothing but worrying along. I saw you were young, and needed youth about you. God forgive me for my selfish plans. I wanted to keep your friendship for myself, and when I saw you were attracted elsewhere, I was jealous—horribly, vilely ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... These vain presidents were seen turning their looks from a man who imposed so strongly upon their pride, and who annihilated their arrogance in the place even whence they drew it, and rendered them stupid by regards they could ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... "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 gave ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you wish me good evening, you stupid jackass! Do you suppose I have travelled five and twenty miles for the pleasure of wishing you good evening? Who's ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... of all is the attitude which we often take up of resenting the love that would reveal our ruin. It is stupid of the ox to kick against its driver's goad; but that is wise in comparison with the action of the man who is angry with God because He warns that departure from Him is ruin. Many of us treat Christianity as if ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... she used, "I'm that stupid and awkward that I can't do nothing," or that still worse thing, "I suppose I can do anything I want to," Juliet replied modestly, "I will try to do what ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... place."[62] {302} There is a Heaven this side of Heaven and there is as certainly a Hell this side of Hell. The most impressive expression of this truth is given in one of his Sermons: "All misery arises out of ourselves. It is a most gross mistake, and men are of dull and stupid spirits who think that the state which we call Hell is an incommodious place only; and that God by His sovereignty throws men therein. Hell ariseth out of a man's self. And Hell's fewel is the guilt of a man's conscience. It is impossible that any ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... bad white fellow, sar—he try kill Maori, but Maori too much not kill, sar. Jacky Fishook stupid fellow, sar—not know Maori—but Maori throw spear—yes." And there and then the muscular lithe figure was drawn up like a statue; the beady eye glaring straight forward, the arm poised as though to hurl a javelin. It was quite enough—I knew ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... "desolate places," I would be there; if bare-footed she had to beg from door to door, rest assured, mother, that an Aylwin would hold the wallet—would leave the whole Aylwin brood, their rank, their money, and their stupid, vulgar British pride, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... it, the carelessness and obstinacy with which the greater part of the people had fostered it, its progress. This was the substance of what she said; but she did not speak of the best efforts as being her own, nor did she call the people stupid ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the actors I have mentioned, come the confidants, a dull and stupid set, of whom one only deserves mention, not as an actor, but as an author. This is DUVAL. He has written that pretty comic opera, entitled Le Prisonnier, as well as Maison a vendre, and several drames, among which we must not forget Le Lovelace Francais, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... and compare it with the vulgar daubs even of John Kemble's time. Some of the scenes by Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve, and Pugh, are "perfect pictures." Yet the language of the stage is at a stand, and insipid comedy, dull tragedy, and stupid farce are more abundant than before the "march ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... The elephant is stupid when it comes to learning how to use tools. So are all other species except our own. Isn't it strange? A tool, in the most primitive sense, is any object, lying around, that can obviously be used as an instrument for this or that purpose. ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... washed and scrubbed as well as I could; but it was so dirty and so sticky! Ugh! And it was done on purpose, too; that's the worst of it; and the nasty things have got into my clothes and my hair and all over me! That stupid young gentleman did it just to frighten whoever came and found them there! I know ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... 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 history ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... out with his fork, 'once overrun by soldiers - trespassers every man of 'em - and laid waste by fire and sword. He, he, he! The idea of any man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and sword! Stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you laugh at your fellow- creatures, you know, when you think of it! But take this smiling country as it stands. Think of the laws appertaining to real property; to the bequest and devise of real property; ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... one, and a locus poenitentiae is thus given to the embryo—an opportunity of correcting the experience of one parent by that of the other. And this is what the more intelligent embryos may be supposed to do; for there would seem little reason to doubt that there are clever embryos and stupid embryos, with better or worse memories, as the case may be, of how they dealt with their protoplasm before, and better or worse able to see how they can do better now; and that embryos differ as widely in intellectual and moral ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... farm, that would be enough of itself to make him stop where he is, and brave it out. Whereas you, sir, are known to be cautious and careful, and farseeing and discreet." He might have added: And cowardly and obstinate, and narrow-minded and inflated by stupid self-esteem. But respect for his employer had blindfolded the clerk's observation for many a long year past. If one man may be born with the heart of a lion, another man may be born with the mind of a mule. Dennis's master was one of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... and stupid in her wretchedness, Stood on the shifting sand, with ruffled hair: Her hands were joined, her lips were motionless, Her languid eyes upturned, as in despair, Accusing Him on high, that to distress And whelm her, all the fates united were. Astound ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... farmhouses. Naturally Georgie soon began to talk about, and take an interest—as girls will do—in the young gentlemen of the town, and who was and who was not eligible. As for the loud-voiced young farmers, with their slouching walk, their ill-fitting clothes, and stupid talk about cows and wheat, they were intolerable. A banker's clerk at least—nothing could be thought of under a clerk in the local banks; of course, his salary was not high, but then his 'position.' The retail grocers and bakers and such people ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... qualifications for Yoga is "right notion" "Right notion" means that the thought shall correspond with the outside truth; that a man shall he fundamentally true, so that his thought corresponds to fact; unless there is truth in a man, Yoga is for him impossible. Missing the point, illogical, stupid, making the important, unimportant and vice versa. Lastly, instability: which makes Yoga impossible, and even a small amount of which makes Yoga futile; the unstable man cannot be ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... Mime, delighted with himself, readily replies: "Nothung is the name of a notable sword.... The fragments of it are preserved by a wise smith, for he knows that with the Wotan-sword alone an intrepid stupid boy, Siegfried, shall destroy the dragon." He rubs his hands in goblin glee. "Am I, dwarf, in the second instance still to retain my head?" Wanderer, with a laugh for his antics, felicitates him: ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... was stiff and stupid: Margaret Pillsbury's parties always are—no dancing, no cards. Mr. Falconer was the only man there who could say anything." This was Gertrude's defence, given with some confusion, and with more of doggedness than defiance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... were most promising. It was growing in population and in wealth and in the institutions of a Christian commonwealth. The territory was divided into parishes for the work of church and clergy. The stupid obstinacy of the king, against the remonstrances of the Company, perpetrated the crime of sending out a hundred convicts into the young community, extorting from Captain Smith the protest that this ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... "Thou dull stupid man, who art not stricken with the idea of a God, whose will is self-efficient, and who alone can act immediately on an immaterial soul, come and behold some sensible proofs of that infinite power, of which metaphysical proofs can give thee no idea! And thou, proud insolent man! go aboard the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... she whispered. "He's certain to come then. But if I—were to die first—then tell him—I'm sorry for him. They keep saying: 'Don't talk—don't talk!' Isn't it stupid? As if I should have any other chance! There'll be no more talking after to-night! Make everybody come, please—I want to see them all. When you're dying you're freer than any other time—nobody wants you to do things, nobody cares what you say.... He promised me I should do what ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... seen Fern Mullins in boots and tweed skirt and canary-yellow sweater, fleet and self-possessed. Now she lay across the bed, in crumpled lavender cotton and shabby pumps, very feminine, utterly cowed. She lifted her head in stupid terror. Her hair was in tousled strings and her face was sallow, creased. Her eyes were a blur ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... which was most popular he would have accepted and backed. But he said, "Io non voglio 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... you since your sisters were at the Argyle Rooms, [8] which they liked extremely, but where they had small opportunity of exhibiting their new steps. There was first an Operetta, then a supper, and afterwards an attempt at a dance; but the stupid English voted it not ton, and there were only about fifteen couples who ventured to defy this opinion—Marianne and Mr Macdonald one of them. Anne remained a spectator. As the dancing did not seem to be approved, Mr Greville said, for the future there should ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... years ago, during a storm at sea, a stupid sea-captain ordered his passengers to go below in the hold of the vessel. Then he covered up the hold, so that no fresh air could enter. When the storm was over he opened the hold, and found that seventy human beings had died for want of ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... huge crop of Pomeroy paragon chestnuts on my trees this year. No blight near me, as thank heaven the farmers around me are too stupid to plant chestnut trees and in fact no farmer ever planted a nut tree with two exceptions within 20 miles of me. But one farmer by name of Anderson planted a mile of black walnuts along the roadside 75 years ago. These trees are loaded with nuts and boys just now and they reach ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... think; you may tie a stone to a bed-cord and not get soundings in some of 'em. The country boys will tell you they have no bottom, but that only means that they are mighty deep; and so a good many stagnant, stupid-seeming people are a great deal deeper than the length of your intellectual walking-stick, I can tell you. There are hidden springs that keep the little pond-holes full when the mountain brooks are all dried up. You poets ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reading Glover's Leonidas, Wilkie's Epigoniad, Lamartine's Pilgrimage, Barlow's Columbiad, Tuckerman's Sicily, and Griswold's Curiosities, I am willing to confess, therefore, that I now felt a little stupid. I made effort to arouse myself by frequent aid of Lafitte, and all failing, I betook myself to a stray newspaper in despair. Having carefully perused the column of "Houses to let," and the column of "Dogs lost," and then the columns of "Wives and apprentices runaway," I attacked with great ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the Austrian railway carriage. "They all know. Look at their stupid, perturbed faces. We have slipped across the frontier before they have decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. Ah! what a thing it is to have a smile ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... with weeds so high that we can't see the turn of the path. Now, my case—I'm telling you my story after all—my case is a typical one of the artistic sort. I wrote prose, verse, and dissipated with true poetic regularity. It was after reading Nietzsche that I decided to quit my stupid, sinful ways. Yes, you may smile! It was Nietzsche who converted me. I left the old crowd, the old life in Paris, went to Brittany, studied new rhythms, new forms, studied the moon; and then people began to touch their foreheads knowingly. I was suspected simply because I did not want to turn ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Chinese Communist diplomat in Berne, Switzerland, happened to see it and, one night at a dinner party, he said mockingly: "This stupid American general in Jerusalem is obviously ignorant of the world. Otherwise, he would realize that no nation on earth loves gambling so much as the Chinese. Anyone who knows the Orient ...
— The Golden Judge • Nathaniel Gordon
... unacquainted with the particulars of the courier, &c., but only said that the King, his master, had assured him that he should invest you with that order, as his Brother(88) had desired he would, and that it should be done avec toute la pompe et eclat dont la chose fut susceptible. He is a stupid ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... English were the people who had crucified our Saviour. To complicate matters again, the Chevalier de St. George (of whom there is no recollection except that he was anonymous, both as a prince, and as a man) sent his son, the fifth remove in stupidity, of the most stupid line of monarchs (not even excepting the Georges) that ever wore crowns, to stir up an insurrection among the most obtuse race of people that ever wore, or went without, breeches. A war between France and England followed the descent of the Pretender. A war ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... me stupid for leaving on the table the little bit of paper I was to enclose. This comes of being in love at the fag-end of a letter of business. You know you say they will not chime together. I had got you by the fire-side with the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... unknown to me ... I earnestly hope they will wait. The Germans are a slow people; but they will move in time. Every German I see believes this.... 'We without them cannot be made perfect,' seems to me the clue to European oppressions. While stupid barbarism exists in masses, it will be the tool of tyranny against the more educated and ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... am sure," said Bluebell, the tears rushing to her eyes, "I wish you had never come. I have been miserable ever since I took that stupid walk, which you prevented my ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... but I'm too stupid to think of anything better. This is a terrible place; but I suppose you must be here till you grow strong enough to walk or ride. We shall have to bring you food and things as ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... me; and the start of surprise and consternation which escaped the stranger when he first saw me confirmed me in the impression. But a moment later I doubted; so natural was the posture into which the man fell, and so stupid the look of inquiry which he turned first on me and then on Maignan. As he stood before me, shifting his feet and staring about him in vacant wonder, I began to think that I had made a mistake; and, clearly, either I had done so or this young man was possessed of talents and a power of controlling ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... said Grant calmly, "the great new trade of the Organizer of Repartee. This fat old gentleman lying on the ground strikes you, as I have no doubt, as very stupid and very rich. Let me clear his character. He is, like ourselves, very clever and very poor. He is also not really at all fat; all that is stuffing. He is not particularly old, and his name is not Cholmondeliegh. He ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... last believe, O stupid British, German, and French patriots, what the Socialists have been telling you for so many years: that your Union Jacks and tricolours and Imperial Eagles ("where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered") are ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... am like this sometimes. It's awfully silly, but I can't help it. Some rotten trifle sets me off, and then I can't stop myself. I begin to go over all my worst luck.—Doesn't it occur to you there's no earthly good in standing? It obliges me to talk loud, and it's stupid to take all Barnes Common into our confidence. Thanks; that's very nice of you.—Well, you see when I'm like his, the flood-gates of memory are opened—which sounds pretty enough, but the prettiness is strictly limited to the sound for most of us, at least as far as my experience goes. The water ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... down. This isn't enough for these long years. I had so many things to say to you." She hesitated and cried, "Why are we so stupid now—now when ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... 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
... greatly shocked at such an imputation, for his conscience is still too timid for so flagrant a crime. He merely follows the golden maxim of 'caveat emptor', and, like the petty shopkeeper, thinks he is justified in cheating those who are too stupid to look after their own interests, and too ignorant or too feeble to ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... Stupid! A swamper from one of the worst rat holes in the port. Like as not that youngster would have had his brains kicked out in a brawl, or been fried to a crisp when some drunk got wild with a blaster, before the year was out. He'd done him a real kindness, given him a chance at a future less ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... republic must be restored, new ships built and old ones refitted; in the meantime, as did Richelieu or Mazarin, rebellion against the British government must be roused and supported among malcontents everywhere within the borders of Great Britain, especially in Ireland. Such was the stupid plan of the Directory: two well-worn expedients, both discredited as often as tried. To the territorial readjustment of Europe, Prussia, though momentarily checked, was already pivotal; but the first efforts of French diplomacy at Berlin resulted in a flat refusal to go farther than ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane |
