"Worldly-wise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and this induced Alban almost to regret that he had made any such overtures, and to believe that Darrell's repugnance to open the door of conciliation a single inch to so sturdy a mendicant was more worldly-wise than Alban had originally supposed. Yet partly, even for Darrell's own security and peace, from that persuasion of his own powers of management which a consummate man of the world is apt to entertain, and partly from a strong curiosity ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... worldly-wise head. "Not so fast, my dear Wessely, not so fast. Your Hebrew Ode to the Austrian Emperor was unimpeachable as poetry, but, I fear, visionary as history. Who knows that this is more ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... He knew well enough that Godfrey Radmore, after that dramatic exit to Australia, had cut himself clean off from all his friends. He was coming back now as that wonderful thing to most people—a millionaire. Was it likely, so the worldly-wise old doctor asked himself, that a man whose whole circumstances had so changed, ever gave a thought to that old boyish love affair with Betty Tosswill?—violent, piteous and painful as the affair had been. But had Betty forgotten? About that the doctor ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... narrow dirty street in the most miserable part of the great city of London, a group of children were playing beside the gutter. They were all dirty and ragged, and the faces of many were old and worldly-wise. One little girl, however, though her dress was as torn and soiled as that of any of the other dwellers in the filthy street, had a pretty childish face. She was a bright-looking little one, with matted brown hair hanging in tangled curls that had never ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... nothing to be done, however, but to plod along in the familiar rut. He must stomach aspersions and injuries, behave as if nothing had happened. His first hot intention of turning his back on Schwarz soon yielded to more worldly-wise thoughts. Every practical consideration was against it. He might avenge himself, if he liked, by running to the rival teacher like a crossed child; Schrievers would undoubtedly receive him with open arms, and promise him all he asked. But what could he hope to accomplish, under a complete ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... soft, little person with constant intimations of a childhood not long outgrown. Dimples ran in and out her pink cheeks at the slightest excuse. The blue eyes were innocently wide and the Cupid's-bow mouth invitingly sweet. The girl from Brush, Colorado, was about as worldly-wise as a plump, cooing infant or a fluffy kitten, and instinctively the eye caressed her ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... was a magazine of a little older standing to which Dr. Belknap had been contributing (his "Foresters" appeared there), and the incident of the worldly-wise Hazard, gently encouraging the clergyman to play the rivals against each other, has at least an approach to modern literary history. Webster, with his restlessness, had no sooner launched the "American Magazine" than he began to form other projects, as intimated in Hazard's letter, and wished ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... and insinuating contempt without crude abuse or noisy denunciation. He has a delicate sense of fun, a keen eye for incongruities and absurdities, and that genuine cynicism which springs, not from the poor desire to be thought worldly-wise, but from a lifelong acquaintance with the foibles of political men. To these gifts must be added a voice which age has not robbed of its sympathetic qualities, a style of diction and a habit of pronunciation which belong to the eighteenth century, and that formal yet facile ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... princes, nay even pontiffs, delighted to honour, or rather to distinguish by honours. The Marquess Federigo Gonzaga of Mantua, the Duke Guidobaldo II. of Urbino, among many others, showed themselves ready to propitiate him; and such a man as Titian the worldly-wise, the lover of splendid living to whom ample means and the fruitful favour of the great were a necessity; who was grasping yet not avaricious, who loved wealth chiefly because it secured material ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... Marietta, newly admitted to the honor of her acquaintance, wondered to themselves at the cold monotony of her black and white engravings. The artlessness of this wonder struck shame to their hearts when they chanced to learn that the lady had repaid it with a worldly-wise amusement at their own highly-colored waterfalls and snow-capped mountain-peaks. Marietta could recall as piercingly as if it were yesterday, in how crestfallen a chagrin she and her mother had gazed at their parlor after this incident, their disillusioned eyes ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... places of a peculiar class of parasites, who called themselves cultivated people; they were indeed cynical enough, as the so-called educated classes of the day generally were; but they affected an exaggeration of cynicism in order that they might be thought knowing and worldly-wise. The rich middle classes (they had no relation with the working classes) treated them with the kind of contemptuous toleration with which a mediaeval baron treated his jester; though it must be said that they were by no ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... disarms but distrust encourages. The inexperienced kitten which approaches us confidingly with arched back and upright tail, soliciting caresses, generally receives the gentle treatment that it expects; whereas the worldly-wise tom-cat, who, in response to friendly advances, scampers away and grins at us suspiciously from the fancied security of an adjacent wall, impels us to accelerate his retreat with ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... indeed to marry an artist as superior in his talent as in his personal attributes, equally great in soul and mind, worldly-wise, and likely to rise by following the public road without being obliged to wander along crooked, doubtful by-paths. However, you knew Adolphe; you appreciated his worth. I am loved, he is a father, I ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... She was worldly-wise in her way, and thought it best to leave well alone. Sailing out of the room she left them alone together: as she ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the little volume in her hand, and seemed to think out the question of Miss Goff. Presently, with an air of having made up her mind, she said, "Can you guess which of Goethe's characters you remind me of when you try to be worldly-wise ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... diplomatic engagements and assurances designed to serve as groundwork to an eventual enterprise of that kind must therefore also be questionable in a high degree. It is even doubtful if any allowance of time can be counted on to bring these modern peoples to a more reasonable, more worldly-wise, frame of mind; so that they would come to see their interest in such an arrangement, or would divest themselves of their present stubborn and perhaps fantastic prejudice against an autocratic regime of the kind spoken for. At ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... them will necessarily be preserved to keep alive their beliefs and to spread abroad their teachings, of the ultimate triumph of which he never seemed to doubt. However, in view of the perplexity of the times and of the dangers by which they were surrounded, he gave them the following somewhat worldly-wise advice—"For the appearance of God now is in the Saints that they worship the Father in spirit and truth in such a secret manner as the eye of the world cannot and does not always see": a practice of which, as we have already noticed, the adherents of ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... Her "exercises," as she called them, he considered something perfectly wonderful, and belonging to a class of scientific music which a poor fellow like him could not be expected to enjoy. But, like many an older and more worldly-wise person, he pretended to be thrown into raptures by it, and, at every pause in the playing, would say, "Beautiful! a'n't it?" "That's prime!" or "Splendid!" or "The best I ever heerd." Sometimes, at ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... bridge of Time, over which our fancy travels back to the days when Marlow Manor owned Saxon Algar for its lord, ere conquering William seized it to give to Queen Matilda, ere it passed to the Earls of Warwick or to worldly-wise Lord Paget, the councillor of ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... you!' I think that before he left, Harley had begun to suspect that all was not well between my husband and myself, and he felt it necessary to give me a little friendly counsel. He was tactful, and politely vague, but I understood him—my worldly-wise young cousin. I think that saying of his sums up the philosophy that he would teach to all women—'What you don't ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... and had long practised the devices of a fortune-teller, thus accustomed to scan the possibilities and in some degree versed in the adjustment of the probabilities, accorded the homely verisimilitude of their worldly-wise representations the meed of a simple and respectful credulity. The mountaineers were ignorant indeed in their sort, but far too sophisticated to entertain aught but the most contemptuous disbelief in her ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... It was all of a piece—everything was growing worse and worse. "Young matron," indeed!—where had his grandchild picked up that precious phrase? She was growing all too worldly-wise for his simple old mind. His abashed eyes turned away from her and began to blink at the twinkling candles on the tea-table; it stood there like an altar raised for the celebration of some strange, fearsome ritual—an incident ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... to say Drislane was so innocent as to be a joke; but after that talk into that wintry dawn I had to salute him. He had just a little something on all of us who were so much more worldly-wise. It surely was a great gift he had—to see in every ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... The worldly-wise merchant spoke smilingly, and holding Meir by the hand, led him into the drawing-room. There, before the green sofa, he stood still, and looked into Meir's ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko |
