"Humbug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your humbug! Yes, very possibly she is there before us. I have had a feeling that she would be for these last ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... quarrel with humanity at large, and so he went the whole hog, more in search of a desperate ideal than by way of impetuous sin. Mr. WILKINSON treats the affair with deliberate, cold-blooded, even cynical analysis; and his portrayal of the snobbery and humbug of the upper-middle class, social and intellectual, in which his creatures move is searching and disturbing. But, I ask myself, are people really like that? Or rather are there enough of these unnaturals, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... entirely ceased to believe in Ancient Mythology, and has been even heard to hint that he considers Dr. LEMPRIERE a bit of a humbug. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... a college graduate, though doubtless he was as much of a humbug in recitations and examinations as he had always been since. Andrew's only reply to his assertion that he was a literary man was a rather severe and prolonged scrutiny of his oily locks, his dainty mustache, his breast-pin, ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... have, which is but[7] in France, may not be confiscated. The thirst for spoliation is great; the people who lead have no other view, they are not fanatics, their aim is to rise and to enrich themselves; the remainder is mere humbug, exactly as you have it very near home. Never was there a nation in a worse and a more helpless state, and the numerous parties who will not unite render all solutions impossible, and the republic will be maintained for that very reason. It is ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... impelled by his tradition, by his sense of fitness, by his respect for his calling, to offer her his ministrations and consolations, to say his large flat amiabilities over her and pat her kindly with his hands. And she knew too that he dreaded her. She knew that the dear old humbug knew at the bottom of his heart quite certainly that he was a poor old humbug, and that she was in his secret. And at the bottom of his heart he found himself too honest to force his poor platitudes upon any who would not be glad of them. If she could ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... it had "burst," others that it had "burned out." Betsy said: "Whatever it was, it was a humbug;" and the wisest man in Whitefield could neither tell whence it came nor whither it went. One thing, however, was certain: Farmer Lathem said that never, since his orchard began to bear, had he gathered such a crop of apples as he did, despite the drought, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... then thanked me profusely, remarking that such little services were due between countrymen; shook hands with me, "for add lang syne," as he said; and took himself solemnly away, radiating dirt and humbug as ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I can always humbug Miss Walker and make her say lots of indiscreet things," Tims returned, with labored diplomacy. "But I don't repeat them—at least, ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... originally in the humblest possible way; and how many of the dregs of colonial society—the occupiers of the lowest rung on the colonial ladder—reached their new home with all the pomp and circumstance of quarter-deck sublimity, and all the humbug and pretension of real or fancied aristocracy. Is the result we see—for these contrasts are to be found plentifully in all the colonies at the Antipodes—what it ought to be, or not? ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... tendency to "keep going" is common to all our faithful domestic animals: more particularly is it the case with draft-animals, who will go on till they drop. There are very few that consciously resist work, or who humbug us by pretending they are ill. Yet, as I had told Rolf, we had one of these exceptions at the farm; it was an ox that would always lie down and sham dead, if not in the mood to work; he then stretched out his limbs and looked at his last gasp ... but no sooner did we leave him to himself than ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... of a ghost is just the reverse of truth; it makes one consist of a soul without a body, while really a specter, an illusion, a humbug of the eyesight and the touch, is a human body not vitalized through and through ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... until to-day," he wrote on the 20th of July, "gray and cloudy as you please: but I am most disappointed, I think, in the evenings, which are as commonplace as need be; for there is no twilight, and as to the stars giving more light here than elsewhere, that is humbug." The summer of 1844 seems to have been, however, an unusually stormy and wet season. He wrote to me on the 21st of October that they had had, so far, only four really clear days ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... moment, and not beyond. Il boit. De German, he looks to de end. Er sauft. De Englishman, he sits down fresh and intends to get fuddled; but he is a hypocrite. He does not say de truth to hisself nor to nobody, he says, I will get fresh, when he means de odder ding. Big humbug. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... feeling, are all bad. The author does not so much write a life as draw up an indictment. The spirit of his work is grudging, sneering, contemptuous, and pitifully peddling. The great charge is that Dumas was a humbug, that he was not the author of his own books, that his books were written by "collaborators"—above all, by M. Maquet. There is no doubt that Dumas had a regular system of collaboration, which he never concealed. But whereas Dumas could turn out books that ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... Ozma put a stop to it. I think she was quite right. There were several wicked Witches who caused a lot of trouble; but now they are all out of business and only the great Sorceress, Glinda the Good, is permitted to practice her arts, which never harm anybody. The Wizard of Oz, who used to be a humbug and knew no magic at all, has been taking lessons of Glinda, and I'm told he is getting to be a pretty good Wizard; but he is merely the assistant of the great Sorceress. I've the right to make a servant girl for my wife, you know, or a Glass Cat to catch our mice—which she refuses to do—but ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Mr. Bayard, "so pleasantly adjusted our business, suppose we smoke in confirmation of the adjustment. Also, if you will, please explain the humbug of Mr. Gywnn. Why are you, who are among the world's five wealthiest men, so anxious to pretend poverty and hide ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "Mind you don't humbug me!" Chia She observed. "I shall to-morrow send again your mistress round to ask Yuean Yang. If you two have spoken to her, and she hasn't given a favorable answer, well, then, no blame will fall on you. But if she does assent, when she broaches the subject with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... crawl instead of standing upright like free and fearless men, and giving the devil's agent the straightest eye-puncher of which the human arm is capable. I thank Heaven, Sir, that I'm not made on that plan. I'm out to fight humbug and hypocrisy, even when they masquerade as friendship and benevolence; and when I see a fellow coming along with hundreds of pious texts in his mouth, and his hands dripping with the blood of innocent women and children, why, I've got to say ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... one practical idea; in all their hearts, there was not one lofty aspiration. These people, in their daily life were like squirrels in a cage, and because they moved, they thought they were progressing. In them scepticism had killed belief; religion, family, country, were, as they phrased it, all humbug. They had only one aim, one passion—to enjoy themselves. Their watchword was "pleasure." All those who did not perish of consumption ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... nothing disturbed the deep silence but the faint ticking of a clock. After a while a bell rang from an inner room, a door opened, and a gentleman appeared, whose interview with Doctor Lagarde had terminated. His opinion of the sitting was openly expressed in one emphatic word—"Humbug!" No contribution dropped from his hand as he passed the money-box on his ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... humbug, when a private soldier takes the square cap off a first president, and throws it ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... detail on the several popular cries, such as, "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," illustrating them from the Bible, urging his readers to take it as the true Radical Reformer's Guide, if they were longing for the same thing as he was longing for—to see all humbug, idleness, injustice, swept out of England. His other contributions to these periodicals consisted of some of his best short poems: "The Day of the Lord;" "The Three Fishers;" "Old and New," and others; of a series of Letters on the ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... you are a humbug," the Professor said, opening masterfully the doors of the renowned Silenus. And when they had established themselves at a little table he developed further this gracious thought. "You are not even a doctor. But you are funny. Your notion of a humanity universally putting out the tongue and taking ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... strong stronger, the weak weaker, and Moundbuilder immortal, would be perpetuated. But the cherished hopes of Mr. Moundbuilder in this respect will never be realized, for the day is not far distant when earthly mortals will be able to reason and then he will be recognized simply as a vain-glorious old humbug. ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... had been moral. That our trade was in danger of being out-rivalled, and the German navy had developed into such a formidable menace, that after France had been defeated, our own shores would have been immediately attacked by the Germans; it was therefore humbug to suggest that our motive had not been one of pure ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... Phelps, George Allen, George Russell, O. Scott, N. Colver, and a large number of others, and they highly approve its sentiments. They, with you, are fully of the opinion that it is high time to take a firm stand against the no-government doctrine. They are far from regarding it merely as a humbug." John A. Collins, the Anti-slavery agent referred to, founded a community at Skaneateles, N. Y., based upon the following dictums: A disbelief in any special revelation of God to Man, in any form of worship, in any special regard for the Sabbath, in any church, disbelief ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... rule circumstances," said Jack dryly, sitting down in his own room, and taking up Carlyle. "What an amount of humbug is talked in this ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... She'll humbug herself with it, and you'll see that before night there'll be two theories of Putney's escapade. I think the last will be the popular one. It will jump with the general opinion of Putney's ability to carry anything out. And Mrs. Munger will do all ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... youth unconnected with the Catholic faith and the power of the Church".... "The voice of common sense, the voice of sad experience, the voice of Catholic bishops, and especially the voice of the Holy Father, is raised against and condemns the public school system as a huge humbug, injuring and not promoting personal virtue and good citizenship, and as being most pernicious to the Catholic faith and life and all good morals. A pastor, therefore, cannot maintain the contrary opinion without incurring guilt before God and the Church. He cannot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... it was ascertained that Mr. Thackeray was coming, the public feeling on this side of the sea was very much divided as to his probable reception. "He'll come and humbug us, eat our dinners, pocket our money, and go home and abuse us, like that unmitigated snob Dickens," said Jonathan, chafing with the remembrance of that grand ball at the Park Theatre and the Boz tableaux, and the universal wining ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Lordship are all a humbug now, you know," said the Justice; "mere St. Germains titles—Earl of Beauchamp and ambassador plenipotentiary from France, when the Duke Regent scarce knew that he lived, I daresay. But you must have seen old Sir Frederick Vernon ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... delivered sooner or later. His own personal experience, and the experience of his worthy landlord, Gavin Hamilton, may have given the occasion, but the cause of the attack was in the Church itself, and in Burns's inborn loathing of humbug, hypocrisy, and cant. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... would only say then, that he repelled the hon. gent.'s false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt. (Great cheering.) The hon. gent. was a humbug. (Immense confusion, and loud cries of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... love the unhighschooled ways Ol' farmers hed when I was younger— Their talk wuz meatier and would stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger. For puttin' in a downright lick 'twixt humbug's eyes, there's few can metch it. An' then it helves my thoughts as slick, ez stret ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... self-assertion is a great virtue even in a Julius II. There is a vast deal of humbug in the use we make of the word humility. We talk about Christ's humility, but whose self-assertion has ever been more unmitigated? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light." "Learn of Me that I am meek and lowly, and ye shall find rest to your souls." No doubt it is the quality of the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... professional operators, till those subjects even impose upon scientific men who ought to be proof against such deception. Moreover, the possibility of self-hypnotization, carefully concealed and called by another name, opens another great field of humbug and charlatanism, of which the advertising columns of the newspapers are constantly filled—namely, that of the clairvoyant and medium. We may conceive how such a profession might become perfectly legitimate and highly useful; but at present it seems as if any person who went ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... colonies by the Whigs, during their long and perilous rule. If of the former kind, it is to be lamented that he concealed his deliberate convictions under an allegorical piece of humour. His disposition to "humbug" was so great, it was difficult to obtain a plain straightforward reply from him; but had the Secretary of State put the question to him in direct terms, what he thought of Lord Durham's "Responsible government," and the practical ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... lamb; two or three words were interchanged on this occasion. At Reading the Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of that day, he bought a Times and Punch; the latter full of steel-pen thrusts and woodcuts. Valor and beauty deigned to laugh at some inflamed humbug or other punctured by Punch. Now laughing together thaws our human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking match—at Swindon who so devoted as Captain Dolignan?—he handed them out—he souped them—he tough-chickened them—he brandied and cochinealed one, and he brandied ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... majority with a disciplined army and navy and a well-filled treasury could not preserve itself, when attacked by an unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority. All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want to dissolve the Union; you ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... to be up awful early, and pick the last cherries off that tree. I wanted to get ahead of him, so I sneaked down before light to humbug him, for I was going a-fishing, and we have to ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... that they could not see her face, turned into the shadow, nestled against the pillow, moved now and then as by the zephyr breath of a smile. At times she wanted to laugh at their pretense and humbug. To prevent it breaking out in unseemly sound she was obliged to bite the coverlet and let the spasms of mirth waste themselves in her body ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the Commendatore. "When I repeated that humbug about your becoming a nun and resigning the properties to him, he held up his hands in horror. 'She must not think of such a thing,' he cried. 'Tell the young lady that I could never conceivably accept such a sacrifice. I understand her scruples, and they do her great honour. But she ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... of that, you snub me. Still, you know what I mean—there's none of that off-and-on humbug between us. If we grumble with one another we are united just the same: if we don't write when we are parted, we are just the same when we meet—there has been some rational reason for silence; but as for lovers and sweethearts, there ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... terrible passion. "Cheated for once in my life! sold, if ever a fellow was! it's a regular trick that was played! They wanted to get rid of their beggar's brat, and palmed her off upon me, with that humbug story of the nabob of an uncle. I'll nabob her! And there's her ticket, which I was fool enough to pay for, and the carriage hire, and my trouble with this saucy thing, who holds her head up so high; if ever I am swindled again, my ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... never call him a humbug again. There's SOMEBODY, at any rate, that feels better after ...
— The Game of Logic • Lewis Carroll
... Miriam grateful and proud, "I feel such a humbug. You know when I wrote that letter to the Fraulein I said I was a member of the Church. I know what it will be, I shall have to take the English ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... not desirable that one's taste should become too fastidious, or that natural feeling should be refined away. And a cynical young man is bad, but a cynical old one is a great deal worse. The cynical young man is probably shamming; he is a humbug, not a cynic. But the old man probably is a cynic, as heartless as he seems. And without thinking of cynicism, real or affected, let us remember, that, though the taste ought to be refined, and daily refining, it ought not to be refined beyond being practically serviceable. Let things be good, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... more than at the same period a Warrington would confess that he was a contributor to the leading journals of the day. The members were on the look-out for any indications of intellectual originality, academical or otherwise, and specially contemptuous of humbug, cant, and the qualities of the 'windbag' in general. To be elected, therefore, was virtually to receive a certificate from some of your cleverest contemporaries that they regarded you as likely to be in future an eminent man. The judgment ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... by the false. More than eighteen hundred and sixty-two years may yet elapse before the bells that 'ring out the old and ring in the new,' will 'ring out the false and ring in the true.' Then farewell humbug. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... imagined. When these fanatics were prevented by the watchers from extracting what little of life was left in the object of their devotions, their indignation took various forms of expression. As a rule they denounced the whole thing as a humbug, and every one participating as frauds. Now and then it became positively necessary, in common decency and self-respect, to show these charlatans the way to the door, notwithstanding their protests that they had paid twenty-five cents for the purpose of ventilating their ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... as they have been for her!" said the Rector, shaking his head. His face was very lugubrious, for though as a parson he was essentially a kindly, easy man, to whom humbug was odious, and who dealt little in the austerities of clerical denunciation, still he had his face of pulpit sorrow for the sins of the people—what I may perhaps call his clerical knack of gentle condemnation—and could therefore ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... ways of pushing Russian trade and industries in Persia. In all this he has the absolute confidence and help of his Government, and it is really marvellous how much he has been able to do to further Russian influence in Persia. There is no trickery, no intrigue, no humbug about it; but it is mere frank, open competition in which the stronger ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... confess at once that I was sadly disappointed. It was a pleasure, of course, to see what I had read of and pictured to my mind, from early boyhood; but this contemptible little affair looked very much like a humbug. A vague idea had taken possession of my mind that I would see a whole district of country shooting up hot water and sulphurous vapors—a kind of hell upon earth; but that thing ahead of us—that little curl of smoke on ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... in the knowledge that I, the dispenser of sacred things to the people, was myself the slave of a money-lending Jew, and you will easily see how my life could not be to me the reality which it must be, for any true and healthy action, to every man. In a word, I felt that I was humbug. As to my preaching, that could not have had much reality in it of any kind, for I had no experience yet of the relation of Christian Faith to Christian Action. In fact, I regarded them as separable—not merely as distinguishable, in the necessity which our human nature, itself an analysis of the ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... broot has his punishment if that tim passes an you havent challenjed him ill tel don santiago you was never segretary nor joked with canobas nor went on a spree with the general don arseno martinez ill tel clarita its all a humbug an ill not give you a sent more if you challenje him i promis all you want so lets see you challenje him i warn you there must be no excuses nor delays yore cozin ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Nimrod, whose orthodox toes Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup; Dr Humdrum, whose eloquence flows, Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup; Dr Rosygill puffing and fanning, And wiping away perspiration; Dr Humbug who proved Mr Canning The ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tour of the State, with noise and music, crowded his meetings, and otherwise sought to dishearten Robinson's friends. Although Kelly's speeches did not compare in piquancy with his printed words, his references to Tilden as the "old humbug of Cipher Alley" and to Robinson as having "sore eyes" when signing bills, kept his hearers expectant and his enemies disturbed. The World followed him, reporting his speeches as "failures" and his audiences as "rushing ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... separate the wisdom from the cynicism of his chief. He saw the lesson of moderation. "You have failed, my very able chief," he said to himself, "because you have never believed intensely enough to move you to act. You have attached too much importance to the adulteration—the folly and the humbug. And here you are, still only a critic, ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... of recent bills, and some correspondence as to a Scotch moor he had persuaded his mother to take for the coming season. There was now to be an end, he supposed, to the expenditure which the bills represented, and an end to expensive moors. "I don't regret it for myself." Damned humbug! When did any man, brought up in wealth, make the cold descent to poverty and self-denial without caring? Yet he let the sentence stand. He was too sleepy, too ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "The humbug then was in the tone my perfectly sincere speech took from herself. She gives things, I recognise, rather that sound. It's her weakness," he continued, "and perhaps even one may say her danger. All the more reason you should help her, as I believe you're supposed to be doing, aren't you? I hope ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... heed at all, that he will devise a series of "tests" and "experiments" of his own, to fit his preconceived notion of things psychical, with the latent conviction, at least, that he will be able to prove the whole thing a humbug. ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? The fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return home and report him as the brazen imposter ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a humbug," said Almayer, after a short silence, in an indulgent tone. "Always! I remember the old days. Some fellows used to say there was no one like you for smartness—but you never took me in. Not quite. I never quite believed in ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... widow was perfectly well aware that her snug little free-hold and thriving little trade were quite as great objects of attraction as her delectable self, and acting on the same principle as that old humbug 'Elizabeth,' insanely called 'the good Queen Bess,' viz: the balancing opposite interests, she drew custom to her house and grist to her mill, without troubling herself as to selection from her numerous admirers, which, besides ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... basket-maker lifted his head from his work, and said: "Pshaw! that talk about kyindness" (he was a Kentuckian and said kyindness) "is all humbug. I wonder so smart a woman as you don't know better. You come nearder to bein kyind than anybody I know; but, laws a me! we're all selfish akordin' ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... wished to remember them in her prayers, she said; but the little white volcano almost laughed in her face, and the black diamond eyes twinkled furiously as they turned away to hide their scornful amusement—so strong was the nun's conviction that the new benefactress was a humbug. The Princess looked at the names quite calmly after she had written them—Sister Saint Paul, Sister Giovanna, and Sister Marius—and asked whether she had seen any of them during her visit. But the Mother ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... circumstances. He has better orders than I could give, for I am no hand at scheming. Here we are; or here we stop. Say nothing till I tell you. Pray allow me the honor. You keep in the background, remember, with your veil, or whatever you call it, down. Nobody stops at the very door. Of course that is humbug—we conform to it." ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... few weeks' time, the united forces of the Camusot and Popinot families gained an easy victory in the world, for nobody undertook to defend the unfortunate Pons, that parasite, that curmudgeon, that skinflint, that smooth-faced humbug, on whom everybody heaped scorn; he was a viper cherished in the bosom of the family, he had not his match for spite, he was a dangerous mountebank whom nobody ought ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the most high and powerful lady, Madame le Marquise de Pompadour, maid of honour to the queen. She was in the school of all virtues," &c. The remainder of this most edifying discourse is lost in oblivion, but surely the force of humbug could ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... it 'difficult' to 'determine the difference' between Homo and Pithecus, should yet range them, on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes.") What a complete and awful smasher (and done like a "buttered angel") it is for Owen! What a humbug he is to have left out the sentence in the lecture before the orthodox Cambridge dons! I like Lubbock's paper very much: how well he writes. (119/3. Sir John Lubbock's paper was a review of Leydig ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... once more to see the Burning Spring, and have no doubt whatever that the City of the Falls, that great pre-eminent humbug, if it had been built, might have easily been lit by natural gas, as it abounds every where in the neighbourhood, the rock under the superior Silurian limestone being a shale containing it, as may be evidenced by those visitors, who are persuaded to go under "the Sheet ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... come to town she commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which I'd always treated her civilly, only when I said 'No,' she found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... hours," he said. "I have looked you up at the first opportunity. Now am I a nuisance? Be frank! I told the servant that if you were at work you weren't to be disturbed. Don't humbug about it; if I am ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... set my Show up steep, and kalled me the urbane and gentlemunly manager, but when I, fur the purpuss of showin' fair play all round, went to anuther offiss to get my handbills printed, what duz this pussillanermus editer do but change his toon and abooze me like a injun. He sed my wax-wurks was a humbug, and called me a horey-heded itinerent vagabone. I thort at fust Ide pollish him orf ar-lar Beneki Boy, but on reflectin' that he cood pollish me much wuss in his paper, I giv it up; and I wood here take occashun to advise ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... resorted to. Thus there will be a finer chance of reformation than ever there was before. To urge moral reforms, to talk sloppy nonsense about liberty, about the poor prostitute, police interference, and all that humbug; to seek cover under "the unequal action of the laws between men and women," or any other form of excuse, is willfully to falsify the position. For myself, I assert without a shadow of hesitation, that I would quite gladly be ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... to witness a regular procession of officials whom the "man of God" appointed, in accordance with value received. Even Goremykin was compelled to bow before the mystic humbug. Rasputin for five years caused to be appointed or dismissed all the bishops, and woe betide any person who attempted to interfere with ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... excessively that any change would be a relief to him." ... "Froude is staying up, and I see a great deal of him." ... "Froude is most enthusiastic in his plans, and says, 'What fun it is living in such times as these! how could one now go back to the times of old Tory humbug?'" From henceforth his position among his friends was that of the most impatient and aggressive of reformers, the one who most urged on his fellows to outspoken language and a bold line of action. They were not men to hang back and be afraid, but they were cautious and considerate of popular ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... the Canadian wilderness, he may rest assured that the work is nothing but a travesty on life in Canada. Any author, any illustrator, any playwright, any scenario writer, any actor or any director who depicts Canadian wilderness life in that way is either an ignoramus or a shameless humbug. And to add strength to my statement I shall quote the experience of a gentleman who was the first City Clerk, Treasurer, Assessor, and Tax Collector of Dawson ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... My sister's nerves are a bit upset.... After all, this parlour magic is a stupid mistake, because there's always somebody who takes it seriously. It's only humbug, anyway; you ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into the taproom, and laid himself down before the fire. But, suddenly yielding to the conviction that the Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned tail, and ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... even powers within himself of which he knew nothing, begin to assert themselves, and the man commonly reported to possess a strong will, is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. This factor, this man of business, this despiser of humbug, to whom the scruples of a sensitive conscience were a contempt, would now lie awake in the night ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... despair of myself. There is not one gleam of light in all the sad landscape, and the abyss seems waiting at my feet to swallow me up with everything that I cherish. It is no use saying to this demon of the darkness that I know he is a humbug, a mere Dismal Jemmy of the brain, who sits there croaking like a night owl or a tenth-rate journalist. My Dismal Jemmy is not to be exorcised by argument. He can only be driven out ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the English annals. Thinking this, you will not consider my opinion good for anything, and therefore I need not inflict it upon you. Humbugs, however, will explode in the present state of the atmosphere, and the Austrian humbug, for instance, is at last, God be praised for it, exploding. John Bull, I suppose, will work himself into a fine fever about that; but he will think none the worse of the old ladies in Downing Street who are made fools of: and will be none the better disposed ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... would not take a German, even if she was good. Besides, I don't want to be good any more—I am not a humbug—I have learned to be bad. Aren't you going to kees me, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... "Interest of humbug!" snapped Prof. Darmstetter, his own sarcastic self again. "You consent because you vant to be beautiful. You care not'ing for science. I can trust you vit' my secret. You need svear no oat's not to reveal it. You vant to be t'e only perfect voman in t'e vorld, ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... to a fresh effort, and he cried: "It's no good your trying to humbug me—none at all. I've got evidence—plenty of evidence! And I'm going to act on it, too. I'm going to hound you out of the Army and that jade of a wife of mine out of decent society. Do you think, because I don't spend four or five months every year in that rotten hole, London, ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... no pretense of "Madam" or other social formula, but a plain and large "My dear," with the name appended as a concession to the humbug of life, even in regard to the woman he loved—"I am going to Hereford, but shall return here for luncheon. Mrs. Devar's illness is not likely to be lasting, and the view from the Yat is, if possible, better in the afternoon than in ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... thousand dollars. The daily sale of water is six thousand inches, with a weekly income of six thousand dollars. The principal mining towns are Nevada, Grass Valley, North San Juan, Rough and Ready, Orleans Flat, Moore's Flat and Humbug City. ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... "Humbug, man!" said Dick; "you're working yourself into a state of nervous excitement. Why, what the devil do you make of all that nonsense about a mysterious agent which would ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... delay, asking questions of every one whom he for a moment saw standing quiet, and was likely to answer him. Harry Bevan told him a good deal, as did the other midshipmen, no one showing a disposition to humbug him, possibly on Jack's account, who would have found them out if they had. Before night Tom began to fancy that he really knew something about a ship, though it might be some time before he could consider himself a ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... new girls were to have votes," she grumbled. "How can they choose a monitress when they don't know anybody! It's rather humbug, isn't it?" ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... and many of my other doings in those days will no doubt be condemned. By no one more severely than by myself—now that the necessities which then compelled me have passed. There is no subject on which men talk and think, more humbug than on that subject of morality. As a matter of fact, except in those personal relations that are governed by the affections, what is morality but the mandate of policy, and what is policy but the mandate of necessity? My criticism of Roebuck and the other "high financiers" ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... Patriarch—who had floated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the harrying began, with the express design of getting up this trustfulness in his shining bumps and silken locks—at which identical hour and minute, that first-rate humbug of a thousand guns was heavily floundering in the little Dock of his exhausted Tug at home, and was saying, as he ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... loafer proceeded to make a short speech. He touched upon the rights of trade, the liberty of the press, the importance of fair dealing, and the benefits of printing; and concluded by advising his hearers to go the death for their rights, and 'not to stand no humbug.' Such was the effect of his eloquence, that the firm against which he wielded his oratorical thunder found it necessary to compromise matters by treating the entire concourse to a hogshead of wine. 'The company ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... day we went through the humbug of watching one another, and it was pretty sickly business for two of us and hard to act out, I can tell you. About night we landed at one of them little Missouri towns high up toward Iowa, and had supper at the tavern, and got a room upstairs with a cot and a double bed in it, but I dumped my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Abel. 'It's your own proposal, Hollins. Suppose it's evil to swear: isn't it better I should express it, and be done with it, than keep it bottled up, to ferment in my mind? Oh, you're a precious, consistent old humbug, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... will merely cultivate the art of telling a plausible tale with a view to tricking the people into entrusting them with power. The only possible way by which politicians as a class can be improved is the political and psychological education of the people, so that they may learn to detect a humbug. In England men have reached the point of suspecting a good speaker, but if a man speaks badly they think he must be honest. Unfortunately, virtue is not so widely diffused as ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... 'There's no humbug about him, at least,' said Felix. 'He is really cut up exceedingly. Indeed all I have been doing was to get him to moderate his dolefulness. I believe he thinks me ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... called. Hiltring, hiding. Hing, hang. Hinny, honey, sweet. Hirple, hop. Histie, bare, dry. Hizzie, girl, jade. Hoddin, jogging. Hoddin grey, undyed woolen. Holme, evergreen oak. Hornie, the Devil. Hotch, jerk. Houghmagandie, fornication, disgrace. Houlet, owl. Hound, incite to pursuit. Hum, humbug. Hurdies, buttocks. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum |
