"Sarcasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were the chief members of the Captain's company, and he called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once were Men." For though there were men who had experienced as much of the bitter irony of fate as these men; yet they were not fallen ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Oscar with sarcasm. "I am quite aware that you are at the pinnacle of eminence, even if you do ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... said Cecile, laughing at Vinet's sarcasm. "Your ten minutes have expired, and you haven't told us whether the Unknown is a ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... one's wits at some one's else expense—it is also easy—but that is not dramatic criticism. The public asks the critic to tell them calmly and fairly, even coldly, the reasons for or against a production—the reasons why they should, or should not, spend their money to see it—bitter sarcasm overreaches the mark. Just as soon as a critic tries to be personal in his remarks on a play he is exceeding his prerogative and is open to ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... could not rule his spirit. Democracy was inscribed upon his banner, sympathy for the disenfranchised bound him to it, but not that charity which seeketh not her own, nor the loyalty that abides the day when imperfection shall become perfection. Sarcasm was his weapon, ridicule his plan of campaign, and destruction ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of egotism and self-importance to note her sarcasm, the young man beamed with self-satisfaction as ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... be more admirable than Abelard's. Whereupon everybody laughed, and someone thought it affected of me and no true opinion, and others said plainly that it was immoral, and somebody else hoped, in a sarcasm, that I meant to act out my theory for the advantage of the world. To which I replied quite gravely that I had not virtue enough—and so, people laughed as it is fair to laugh when other people are esteemed to talk nonsense. And all ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... designed for his own contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,—sometimes persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... to their neighbours. But though mild and silent, be ever ready with the rapier of repartee, and be ever armed with the breastplate of good temper. You will infallibly gather laurels if you add to these the spear of sarcasm and the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... sarcasm. "He has taken his friends to the old man who makes the thunder," he said. But others did not feel sarcastic, and one observed, "Cheschapah knows more than ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Pagan sisterhood whom he ventured to invoke seldom graced his study with their personal attendance. In these rhyming efforts, scattered up and down his Journal, there are occasional sparkles of genuine wit, and passages of keen sarcasm, tersely and fitly expressed. Others breathe a warm, devotional feeling; in the following brief prayer, for instance, the wants of the humble Christian are condensed in a manner ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... very satisfactory. The Queen rejected the offers to herself, but begged that they might, by no means, be made to her rivals. The expressed intention of softening the heart of Philip by the use of straightforward language seemed but a sorry sarcasm. It was hardly worth while to wait long for so improbable a result. Thus much for England at that juncture. Not inimical, certainly; but over-cautious, ungenerous, teasing, and perplexing, was the policy of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... right dealing which, once imported into the newspaper press, made it an engine far more mighty—an influence far more potent—than ever it had been before. There may have been some loss in style, though many of them wrote gracefully, and many showed on occasion a wonderful command of wit, sarcasm and satire. But because the papers were always truthful the writers always knew what they wanted, and so their work had the ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... could deal justly with them. The old Jewish law stoned to death the immoral woman—not the man—O no! certainly not! Jesus said to a flagrant woman brought before him by a rabble of men: "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." What divine sarcasm, and how they are said to have slunk away ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... Purdee, expectant of a cuffing, stood his ground more doubtfully still under the insidious thrusts of this strange weapon, sarcasm. He knew that they were intended to hurt; he was wounded primarily in the intention, but the exact lesion he could not locate. He could meet a threat with a bold face, and return a blow with the best. But he was mortified in this failure of understanding, ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... insidious mixture of flattery and sarcasm in her words that, for a moment Ebben was at a loss what to answer, so Malen, the milkmaid, took the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... bore his new honors badly, and the inability to express their dissatisfaction by means of violence had a bad effect on the tempers of the crew. Sarcasm they did try, but at that the cook could more than hold his own, and, although the men doubted his ability at first, he was able to prove to them by actual experiment that he could cook worse than ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... in the course of that night's acting, said, 'the players, Sir, have got a kind of rant, with which they run on, without any regard either to accent or emphasis[490].' Both Garrick and Giffard were offended at this sarcasm, and endeavoured to refute it; upon which Johnson rejoined, 'Well now, I'll give you something to speak, with which you are little acquainted, and then we shall see how just my observation is. That ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... trying to be funny all of a sudden! Alter my bills—eh? Not bad! Upon my soul, not at all bad for a parson! Give us another joke, sir; I'm all attention." And Mr. Jubber put his hand to his ear, grinning in a perfect fury of sarcasm. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... to taint with the venom of his envy, the preparations made by the virtuous and highly distinguished lady at whose shrine this humble tribute of admiration was offered.' This last was a piece of biting sarcasm against the INDEPENDENT, who, in consequence of not having been invited at all, had been, through four numbers, affecting to sneer at the whole affair, in his very largest type, with all the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... professor having once exasperated a disputant by the dryness of his sarcasm, the petulant opponent thus addressed him:—"Mr. Porson, I beg leave to tell you, sir, that my opinion of you is perfectly contemptible." Person replied, "I never knew an opinion of yours, sir, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... he carried eccentricity to an extravagant extent, was brusque and curt in speech, often to the verge of insult, laconic in his despatches, and—a soldier in grain—treated with stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad thirst for change, the latter attempted to change the native dress of the Russian ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... sarcasm. "You girls are wonders—just as smart as little Hen Rogers was last term when Miss Haley asked him if he could name any ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... of control, for the firing soon stopped, the Germans thinking, and with reason, that they had bagged me. Some proud Boche airman is wearing an iron cross on my account. Perhaps the whole crew of dare-devils has been decorated. However, no unseemly sarcasm. We would pounce on a lonely Hun just as quickly. There is no chivalry in war ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... to the curious gaze of only one servant, the operator of the small elevator. Once in the shelter of his quarters he rummaged through some scrap-books for data—he found it in a Sunday feature story published a month before in a semi-theatrical paper. It described with rollicking sarcasm, a gay "millionaire" party which had been given in Rector's private dining rooms. Among the ridiculed hosts were Van Cleft, Wellington Serral and Herbert De Cleyster! Here, in some elusive manner, ran the skein of truth ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... me of covert sarcasm, for she changed the topic of conversation. But I heard her afterward talking to a bevy of women on the sorrow of giving up a child after having reared him to manhood's estate, and her listeners all ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to sarcasm just then. He was gazing at the daguerreotype in a sentimental sort of way, blowing the dust from the glass, and tilting it up and down so as to bring it ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... that you would stand up for Miss Stevens, whether she were in the right or in the wrong," she said with cold sarcasm. "I've been seeing that ever since I came to Sanford. But just because she is perfect in your eyes is not reason why I should think so. For my part, I like Miss La Salle. She was awfully sweet to me this morning, and I don't ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... no means the last talk they had—they two alone together. But it seemed to Laurence Stanninghame that a warning note had been sounded, and one of no uncertain nature. His tone became more acrid, his sarcasm more biting, more ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... retort of a great author too conscious of his own views to be angry with his critic! The singular phrase of the lodgings chalked up is a sarcasm explained by this passage in "The Advancement of Learning." "As Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight; so I like better that entry of truth that ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... size, or rather less, but formed with much elegance; piercing dark eyes, and jet-black hair of great length, corresponded with the vivacity and intelligence of features, in which were blended a little haughtiness, and a little bashfulness, a great deal of shrewdness, and some power of humorous sarcasm. "I shall not like her," was the result of Lucy Bertram's first glance; "and yet I rather think I shall," was the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Jacket was still standing some one interposed the remark,— "he's a coward." Turning round with a look of contempt, and in tone and manner expressing the deepest sarcasm, he said,—"YES, I AM A COWARD." And then waving his hand over the broad and beautiful lands that were spread out before them, added: "assure me that you can create lands like these, which the Great Spirit has made for us ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... his side, was sorry that he had exposed her to the sarcasm that she so little understood, and talked to Madame Duvet to withdraw attention ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... dripped with sarcasm. "The Red Stack Company will libel him, and if the old man doesn't, me an' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... sarcasm on the freebooting Leslies, and their kin the Armstrongs and Kennedys; and to Scotchmen this is the very sorest side of a quarrel. They can forgive a bitter word against themselves perhaps, but against their clan, or their dead, it is an unpardonable offence. And ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... grand stalking horse for your first essay in your constituency," Cheiron said with his kindly twinkle of sarcasm. He loved to encourage John ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... this scathing sarcasm, Fred ran on to the house, where through the open door of the kitchen he saw his aunt standing by the table, stirring something in a pudding-bowl. She was reading aloud from a paper that lay on the table before her. "Take four large eggs, two spoonfuls of ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... The two great names in the history of Mima@msa literature after Jaimini and S'abara are Kumarila Bha@t@ta and his pupil Prabhakara, who criticized the opinions of his master so much, that the master used to call him guru (master) in sarcasm, and to this day his opinions pass as guru-mata, whereas the views of Kumarila Bha@t@ta pass as bha@t@ta-mata [Footnote ref 1]. It may not be out of place to mention here that Hindu Law (sm@rti) accepts without ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... he had then found his master standing beside the door of the house, but his question—which, it is true, was not wholly devoid of a shade of sarcasm—whether the knight was waiting for the return of his sleep-walking sweetheart, was so harshly rebuffed that he deemed it advisable to keep ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cut him short. "Not a word. You know perfectly well that you have neglected your duty grossly. Now tell me. Is it your own idea to drop saluting, or has Mr. CHURCHILL had a word in your ear?" (Sarcasm is my ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... would be sarcasm to name me that now! Why, the only claim I have to that name would be because of my fluted skin. Just look at my neck and ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... prove how much better it would be for me to get off three days before Collections and so obtain another whole week in the bosom of my family at Cannes! No doubt Jowett's system of controlling the recalcitrant portions of the College through sarcasm was well meant and occasionally fairly successful. Taking it as a whole, however, I felt then, as I feel now, that sarcasm is the one weapon which it is never right or useful to use in the case of persons who are in the dependent position when ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... sufficiently rallied his strength to set out with Boswell, for Oxford, where he remained about a fortnight, with Dr. Adams, the master of Pembroke, his old college. In his discourse, there was the same alternation of gloominess and gaiety, the same promptness of repartee, and keenness of sarcasm, as ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... poet was moved to sarcasm when he sang of "the willows so green, so charming and rurally true." Surely they were greener than any other trees we had in town; for we had almost none, save a few dark evergreens. Well, the place was charming in its way, and as rurally true as anything could be expected ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... corresponding flow and revulsion of spirits, and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of lassitude, as if she were on the point of sinking to the ground. Then, with a nervous shudder, she seemed to arouse her energies, and threw some bright and playful yet half-wicked sarcasm into the conversation. There was so strange a characteristic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished every right-minded listener, till, looking in her face, a lurking and incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the ridged fallows, Darrell would sometimes pour forth his whole soul, as a poet does to his muse; and at Fairthorn's abrupt interruption or rejoinder, turn round on him with fierce objurgation or withering sarcasm, or what the flute-player abhorred more than all else, a truculent quotation from Horace, which drove Fairthorn away into some vanishing covert or hollow, out of which Darrell had to entice him, sure that, in return, Fairthorn would take a sly occasion to send into ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out again, entering the empty dressing-room and surveying the array of hats on the various pegs, all of which seemed to rebuke her tardiness. "Miss Smith will purse up her lips, and utter some cutting sarcasm of course, but I don't care," and Winnie, kicking off her boots, pitched them—well, I don't think she herself knew where. The jacket being next unfastened, she proceeded to divest herself of her hat, and pulled with such violence that the elastic snapped and struck her face severely. Winnie's ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... possessed one weapon which she used with greater power than another it was that of sarcasm. She could be sarcastic to the point of cruelty. Soon her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone: she was in her element. She was writing quickly, for bare life, and she was writing well. The paper would make the New Woman sit up, and would make the old woman rejoice. It would ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... to waste a powerful lot o' time goin' up an' down to yer camp; why don't ye stay thayer altogether?" said Raften one day, in the colourless style that always worried every one, for they did not know whether it was really meant or was mere sarcasm. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a wonderful example of the different styles of oratory of which each was master; Clay, of declamation, invective, wit, humor and bitter sarcasm; Calhoun of clear statement and close reasoning. This contest, aside from its oratorical power, deserves a place in history. In answer to Clay's attack on his life he replied: "I rest my public character upon it, and desire it to be read by all ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... with elaborate sarcasm. "How should you advise me to earn my living in the future? In the stories they paint dinner cards, don't they? or ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... evident in the song of Moses, in Exodus XV. It requires little imagination to picture Miriam using a folk-song with which her hearers were familiar, improvising words to suit the occasion, and illustrating the whole with successive gestures of pride, contempt, sarcasm, and triumph, while the assembled multitude joined in ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... attitude—aloofness. Partiality. Excitability. Irritability. Pessimism—"in the dumps." Indifferent assignments. Hazy explanations. Failure to cover assignments. Distracting facial expressions. Attitude of "lording it over." Sarcasm. Poor taste in dress. Bluffing—"the tables turned." Discipline for ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... Nothing gives me such an idea of the world of despair as when I read ultra anti-slavery speeches. I see how the lost will hate God's mysterious providence, and revile it; and how they will fight with each other, and pour out their furious invective and sarcasm and vituperation, and scourge one another with their fiery tongues, as they now do, when some one of the party appears to falter. If there were not something truly good in connection with slavery amid all its evils, I think such men would ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... was one of fierce and terrible eloquence. Every art of persuasion, every trick of oratory, every force of personality he used with pitiless power. In ridicule, sarcasm, invective, pathos and logic, his voice rose and fell, pulsed and quivered, or rang with the peal of a trumpet. He held the jury in the hollow of his hand for four hours, while Ruth stared at him with her heart in her throat, every word cutting her flesh like a knife or smashing the tissues ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... youth and its shadowy triumphs. Her brain was ironic, while her temperament was passionate, and greedy in its pursuit of the food it clamoured for; her brain watched the unceasing chase with almost a bitterness of sarcasm, merging sometimes into a bitterness of pity. In some women there seems at times to be a dual personality, a woman of the blood at odds with a woman of the grey matter. It was so in Lady Sellingworth's case, but for a long time the former woman dominated ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Aunt Jane said about Malbone. He had changed his habits a good deal. While the girls were desperately busy about the dresses, he beguiled Harry to the club, and sat on the piazza, talking sentiment and sarcasm, regardless ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... quoted with admirable effect, but it was Swift the reviler, not Swift the jester. He says that he made a "wooden Oxford audience laugh aloud with two pages of Heine's wit"; but the lecture, as we read it, shows more of mordant sarcasm than of the material for laughter. Scott he knew by heart, and Carlyle he honestly revered; but he admired the one for his romance and the other for his philosophy. Thackeray, sad to remember, he "did not think a great writer," and so Thackeray's humour disappears, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... don't think I should ever be sarcastic to you, do you know? You would only laugh. The point of sarcasm ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... time Scrope dwelt upon this remarkable realization. Then as he turned over the pages his eyes rested on a passage of uncivil and ungenerous sarcasm. Against old ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... conversation, Engineer Serko's attitude towards me has undergone a change. His gaze has lost its old-time sarcasm and is distrustful, suspicious, searching and as stern as ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... mob—and a mob in revolt; he fought by the light of nature; he had not a theory, but a thirst. If any one chooses to offer the cheap sarcasm that his thirst was largely a thirst for milk-punch, I am content to reply with complete gravity and entire contempt that in a sense this is perfectly true. His thirst was for things as humble, as human, as laughable as that daily bread ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... sure that the people within much regretted the delay, however those who had been lingering outside might feel themselves ill-used by a pause in the executions, which had now become a popular amusement; for the crowd instantly pushed forward to witness another trial of sarcasm between me and my judges; but this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... stick," replied Moore, with sarcasm. "It sure suits you. Don't you bust everything you monkey with? Your old dad will sure be glad to see you bust the round-up to-day—and I ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... effects; and it may have such; but they are a thousand times compensated by its value as a bond of union to the elements of the domestic circle. The tea-table has been the butt of many a jest and sarcasm, as a fountain of gossip and slander. This may be true; but the security it furnishes against the dissipation of the elements of the social circle outweighs thousands of such trifles, and we half suspect ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... be Wellington in disguise!" added Mr. Effingham, with a sarcasm of manner that was quite unusual ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... surly sarcasm, "uncommon 'andsome. Hoo gave thee th' gander's leavin's, didn't hoo? Ho, ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... he were not familiars;' and the fact that Raleigh would sometimes write twice and thrice to him in one day, and on a single occasion at least, four times, proves that Cecil had a right to use this mild sarcasm. Several months before, Raleigh had attempted by his manifesto entitled The Spanish Alarum to stir up the Government to be in full readiness to guard against a revengeful invasion of England by her old enemy. He had thought out the whole situation, he had planned the defences of England by land ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... central Government at that place for united Germany. Of this body Dr. Neumann was a member. It was a fine field for the display of his free and liberal instincts, and we cannot conceive of his passing through its debates without making large drafts upon his exhaustless fund of humor and sarcasm. It would be strange, indeed, if he could witness the dawn of that freedom which he loved without showing signs of exultation, accompanied with occasional taunts at the regime which was passing away ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Poetry and Dragonfly, and said, "I'll be there in about an hour! I've got to finish tomorrow's dishes first! Better go on down the hill and tell the gang I'll be there in maybe an hour or two," which is what is called sarcasm. ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... oats every Sunday, and strong tea and thistles through the week," replied Fanny Fitz in furious sarcasm. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... frighten his young relative into habits of accuracy, or possibly because an outrage committed against a Greek poet was to him the most horrid of all outrages; but anyhow, during these studies, he altogether laid aside that restraint which he was usually so jealous to maintain over his powers of sarcasm and invective. He lay on the study sofa while the lesson was going on, with a Tauchnitz Euripides in his hand; but sometimes, when a false quantity or a more than usually stupid grammatical blunder was made, ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... the doctor's reply, and with a sigh Hugh went back to the sick girl, who had given him little else than sarcasm and scorn. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... YOU believe in me!" She impulsively seized his hand, and leaving a reproachful look on the schoolmaster turned away to Jude, her voice revealing a tremor which she herself felt to be absurdly uncalled for by sarcasm so gentle. She had not the least conception how the hearts of the twain went out to her at this momentary revelation of feeling, and what a complication she was building up thereby ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... been given to them who was less capable than his predecessor, and that this was expressed in figurative terms, as David speaks of himself in relation to Almighty God in one of the Psalms when he says: I am become as a beast before Thee.[1] "The second sarcasm, however," he added, "has nothing figurative in it, and is absolutely and grossly insulting. We must never speak of our Superiors in such a manner, however worthless they may be. Remember that God would have us obey even the vicious and froward,[2] and he that resisteth the power resisteth ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... The sarcasm of the Count had made the Governor say too much. He had revealed to Monte-Leone the interest he had excited, and the efforts which might be made to save him. To a man like Monte-Leone nothing was lost, and like a skilful geometer, he knew how ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... of literature and art. But to follow the processes by which those results are reached, ought, say the friends of physical science, to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And here there does arise a question between those whom Professor Huxley calls with playful sarcasm "the Levites of culture," and those whom the poor humanist is sometimes apt to ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... these mistaken men I plead, most gracious sovereign," resumed Joan, intimidated not by his sarcasm. "Oh, my father, the conqueror's triumph consists not in the number of rebellious heads that fall before him—not in the blood that overflows his way; magnanimity, mercy, will conquer yet more than his victorious sword. Traitor as he seem, have mercy on Nigel Bruce; ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... the street, Jake Vodell with stirring oratory kindled the fire of his cause. In the councils of the unions, through individuals and groups, with clever arguments and inflaming literature, he sought recruits. With stinging sarcasm and withering scorn he taunted the laboring people—told them they were fools and cowards to submit to the degrading slavery of their capitalist owners. With biting invective and blistering epithet he pictured their employer enemies as the brutal and ruthless destroyers of their homes. ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... himself in a new light, and Horace noted that the young lawyer's face bore sarcasm and unpleasant cynicism. He wondered that his gentle, obedient sister had gathered courage to stand against her lover's wishes; for Everett had expressed a decided objection to Ann's working for the squatter children. Suddenly he felt a twinge of dislike for the man before him, and his respect ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... are esteemed by the Indians to be unclean food; as also ravens, crows, bats, buzzards and every species of owl. They believe that swallowing gnats, flies and the like, always breed sickness. To this that divine sarcasm alludes 'swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.'" Their purifications for their Priests, and for having touched a dead body or other unclean thing, according to Mr. Adair, are quite Levitical. He acknowledges however, that they have no traces of circumcision; but he supposes that they ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... to me," he said, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "that this is an unwarrantable and useless proceeding—doubly so ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of the few gifts which nature had denied to Luis de Leon. He was aware of this himself, to judge from his statement that he had nothing of the jester or scoffer in him.[161] But if Luis de Leon was relatively poor in humour, he had an abundant store of mordant sarcasm and a faculty for ironic banter, as Medina and Castro learned to their chagrin.[162] Pacheco's opinion of Luis de Leon's versatile talent is borne out by the scrap of evidence given at the trial by Francisco de Salinas—the sightless ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... line," remarked Billy Brackett, modestly. "To know me at my best, you ought to be around when I make biscuit. My heavy biscuit are simply monuments of the baker's art. They are warranted to withstand any climate, and defy the ravaging tooth of time. They can turn the edge of sarcasm, and have that quality of mercy which endureth forever. A quartz-crusher turns pale at sight of them, and they supply a permanent filling for aching voids or long-felt wants. In fact, gentlemen, it is universally acknowledged that my biscuit ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... her lord's remark, as becomes a properly constructed German she-owl. They say the same thing over and over again so emphatically that I think it must be something nasty about me; but I shall not let myself be frightened away by the sarcasm ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... ascent left in the wayside chalet by the bridge. I gave an easy good-morning to the group, taking off my hat to Madame. The Count cried disdainfully that I was a slug-a-bed. Henry asked with obvious sarcasm if I had not been up the Piz Langrev. The Countess held out her hand in an uncertain way. Certainly I must have been very young, for all this gave me intense pleasure. Especially did my heart leap when I took the Countess to the window a little to the right, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... find a principle of government which the people could be induced to accept. 'The rights of men and the new principles of liberty and equality,' Burke said, 'were very unhandy instruments for those who wished to establish a system of tranquillity and order. The factions,' he added with fierce sarcasm, 'were to accomplish the purposes of order, morality, and submission to the laws, from the principles of atheism, profligacy, and sedition. They endeavoured to establish distinctions, by the belief of which ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... between "jest and earnest," did Miss Preston handle her girls, drawing by gentleness from a sensitive nature, by firmness from a careless one, by sarcasm (and woe to the girl who provoked it, for it was, truly, "like a polished razor keen") from a flippant, and by one of her rare, sweet smiles from the ambitious all that was ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... drank in the music of his voice, and her eyes flashed back the proud light that shone in his! As she listened to his delineation of woman's claims to the sympathy and the defence of every generous heart, as she heard his biting sarcasm on the cowardly nature that, having wronged, would now crush into deeper ruin his fair client, as she saw kindling eyes fixed upon him, and caught, when he paused for a moment exhausted by the rush of indignant feeling, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... him standing before her, his arms folded; she showed him a face too dreary to be moved by sarcasm. "You may congratulate yourself on lots of things, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Henry Ware, had something to do with that, did he not?" asked Girty, not without a touch of sarcasm. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... compiled in a vague, desultory way, with no particular regard to chronological sequence, these random recollections should interest us, in the first place, as a piece of unconscious self-portraiture. The cynical Court lady, whose beauty bewitched a great King, and whose ruthless sarcasm made Duchesses quail, is here drawn for us in vivid fashion by her own hand, and while concerned with depicting other figures she really portrays her own. Certainly, in these Memoirs she is generally content ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... her enemy and made the target of her wit; but this time the sarcasm failed to produce its effect upon the Syrian, for, instead of laughing, he grew grave, and whispered something which seemed to Barine a reproof or a warning. Iras's reply was merely a contemptuous ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the stage to the other; he would crouch and bend as if he were going to spring upon the audience, a long, skinny finger would be shaken before their faces, or pointed as if to drive his words into their hearts. His speech was a torrent of epigram, sarcasm, invective. He was bitter; if you knew nothing about the man or his cause, you would find this repellent and shocking. You had to know what his life had been—an unceasing conflict with oppression; he had got his Socialist education in jail, where he had been sent for trying to organize the wage-slaves ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... went to Albany to argue, before so august a body of judges, a proposition of law that had in reality so little to commend it; particularly as I was opposed in person by the district attorney of New York County—a man of great learning and power of sarcasm. However, I found the Court of Appeals much interested in my argument and had the pleasure of hearing them put many puzzling questions to my opponent, in answering which he was not always ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... sarcasm. "This road, as you know, owns the line. And the net from the specie shipments equals the net on an ordinary railroad division. But we must have a man to run that line that can curb the disorders along the route. Calabasas Valley, de ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... lady brings her distaff to the council-chamber," the influence of the sex on political opinion, in its operation as a social principle, is recognized. A friend of mine, returning from a dinner-party, described the free and witty sarcasm with which a fair Legitimist assailed the Imperial rule; a week afterwards, meeting her at the same table, she related, that, a few days after her imprudent conversation, she received a courteous invitation from the chief of police. "When they were seated alone ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... loss of a few hundreds in his new occupation of mourning the loss of thousands; and his erect, stiff, statue-like carriage, and long melancholy face, as he stood at the portals of those who had entered the portals of the next world, were but too often a sarcasm upon the grief of the inheritors. Even grief is worth nothing in this trafficking world unless it is paid for. Jonathan buried many, and at last buried his wife. So far all was well; but at last he buried his master, the ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... another way,—he has no comic power and (wiser, in this respect, than Ford) is aware of his deficiency. We find in Nero none of those touches of swift subtle pathos that dazzle us in the Duchess of Malfy; but we find strokes of sarcasm no less keen and trenchant. Sometimes in the ring of the verse and in turns of expression, we seem to catch Shakespearian echoes; ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... that Mr. Brainard should put his arm around you for that?" inquired Mrs. Brainard with biting sarcasm. ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... superciliousness &c. (contempt) 930. vilipendency|, vilification, contumely, affront, dishonor, insult, indignity, outrage, discourtesy &c. 895; practical joking; scurrility, scoffing, sibilance, hissing, sibilation; irrision[obs3]; derision; mockery; irony &c. (ridicule) 856; sarcasm. hiss, hoot, boo, gibe, flout, jeer, scoff, gleek|, taunt, sneer, quip, fling, wipe, slap in the face. V. hold in disrespect &c. (despise) 930; misprize, disregard, slight, trifle with, set at naught, pass by, push aside, overlook, turn ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... who seems to have remained," he said with heavy sarcasm, "was Kara himself. Would you like me to put somebody else on this case—it isn't exactly your job—or will you ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... The slight sarcasm implied in this was enough to redden the expressman's cheek in the light of the coach lamp which Yuba Bill had just unshipped and brought to the window. He would have made some tart rejoinder, but was prevented by Yuba Bill addressing the passengers: "Ye'll have to put up with ONE light, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... magazine, was only heard of again under the head of "respectfully declined," accompanied by some severe and cutting remarks, to the effect that the writer had better look to his grammar and orthography, which uncalled for sarcasm, cruelly, but effectually extinguished what might, perhaps, have been a light, that, in the future, might had illumined the ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the orders of its Commandant. His business is to see that you go into the Palais through his door and not through any other door. And when you tell him that if he will not withdraw his regulations the Ambulance will be compelled to withdraw its services, he replies with delicious sarcasm, "Nous n'avons pas prevu ca." In the end you are referred to the Secretary in his bureau. He grasps the situation and is urbanity itself. Provided with a special permit bearing his sacred signature, you are admitted by the ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... had crept into the voice of the taxi-cab driver when he stopped his vehicle in Madison Avenue and sought Curtis's further commands. No longer did he address his patron with a species of good-humored tolerance, almost of sarcasm; his mental attitude had now become one of respect, even of hero-worship. A little later, while smoking a thoughtful pipe in his own cozy flat somewhere near Second Avenue, he tried to explain this ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... atmosphere between Steve and himself had become permeated with distrust and dislike. Unhappy miasmas floated hither and thither in it, and poisoned him. When with Stephen he hardly recognized himself: he did not belong to himself. Sarcasm, contradiction, opposing ideas, took possession of and ruled him by the forces of antipathy, just as others ruled him by the forces of ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... say, except to entreat you to pardon my somewhat serious utterances because of the many painful reminiscences which your good-natured sarcasm has brought to my lips, although softened by the kindly and genial terms in which you have received me, and I beg you to accept the grateful expression of my heartfelt gratitude for this ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... to leave the poor woman very desolate in the dark. So Mr. Bargrave ventured one morning to ask if she felt quite well; but the snappish manner in which his inquiries were met, as though they masked a load of hidden sarcasm and insult, caused the old gentleman to scuffle into his office with unusual activity, much disturbed and humiliated, while resolved never so ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... shouted back Estada coarsely. "If she won't move, give her a shove. Then tie her up again, and take the turn of a rope 'round her. What do you think this is—a queen's reception? Move lively, Senorita," in mock sarcasm. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... The gentleman whose name you utter is a friend of mine," said the attorney. "He conveyed you here as an emissary of mine. Haven't you known him before?" said De Guy, with a mixture of sarcasm and triumph in the tones of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... those secretaries, such as Mr. Laughlin, in whom his confidence was strongest; his expressions, however, were never flippant or violent. That Page could be biting as well as brilliant in his comments on public personages his letters abundantly reveal, yet he never exercised his talent for sarcasm or invective at the expense of the White House. He never forgot that Mr. Wilson was President and that he was Ambassador; he would still defend the Administration; and he even now continued to find consolation in the reflection that ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... follows not the teacher. And of such a one some might say, how is he dead and yet goes about? I answer that the man is dead and the beast remains."[191] Accordingly he has put living persons in the Inferno, like Frate Alberigo and Branca d' Oria, of whom he says with bitter sarcasm that he still "eats and drinks and puts on clothes," as if that were his highest ideal of the true ends of life.[192] There is a passage in the first canto of the Inferno[193] which ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... writer of the celebrated Letters of Junius, which appeared at intervals in the Public Advertiser between January 21, 1769, and January 21, 1772. These letters are distinguished for their polished style, their power of invective, their galling sarcasm, their knowledge of state secrets, and their unparalleled boldness. Every prominent man connected with the government was attacked: even the king himself was not spared. As revised by their pseudonymous writer in a reprint made in 1772, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... to his face, his chin went up, and there came to his lips bitter words of sarcasm. With an effort, however, he held his tongue, and, turning his back upon the king, his broad shoulders proclaiming the contempt he felt, he walked slowly out ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... honour,' the Hindoo answered, with quiet sarcasm. 'My town and palace may have little to offer that is worth your attention; but I am glad that my big game, at least, has been lucky ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... instances which he fits with his censures are such as he could no longer note, if he came among us again. That habit of celebrating the munificence of the charitable rich, on which he spends his sarcasm, has fallen from us through the mere superabundance of occasion. Our rich people give so continuously for all manner of good objects that it would be impossible for our press, however vigilant, to note the successive benefactions, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... "Sarcasm is an ill-selected arbiter between you and me; and your fate for all time, your future weal or woe is rather a costly shuttlecock to be tossed to and fro in a game of words. I do not come to bandy phrases, and in view of your imminent peril, I ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... condiments to the obliteration of all individual flavor. The plan of execution is so cumbersome that its only defense is its imitation of the inevitably disjointed talk when the guests of a dinner party are busy with their wine and nuts. One is tempted to suspect Athenaeus of a sly sarcasm at his own expense, when he puts the following flings at pedantry in the mouths of some ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... have heard closer speech, more sententious, more convincing and in more direct and forcible language in town meeting than from any other forum. Men are not so much ambitious of eloquence as they are to carry their point. There is often more fun, wit and sarcasm as well as logic than goes with more pretentious and popular rostrums. When the town-meeting is abolished freedom will have lost her humble but most powerful ally. When the town grows to a city all is lost; for our freedom and individual ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... speaker's attitude of mind is not straightforward and sincere, if he speaks with a double meaning, in irony or sarcasm, the stress is a combination of the radical and final, known as compound stress (><). This is analogous to the compound ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... said with mild irritation and sarcasm. "I merely bend at the knees and hips and have a lunch of a weight adequate enough to keep me from floating off my chair and rushing about seeking trouble. Of course it takes years of experience to learn how to do this and most important, when." ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... to have been successful in putting a stop to this injurious treatment; for not long after he declared, with a sarcasm directed against the prominent qualities of his fellow-citizens, "There is no better man at Rome than I. I seek nothing from any one. I am not wordy. I sit here ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... heads in disapproval at what they call the Lanier cult. Abroad he has had no vogue, as have Emerson and Poe and Walt Whitman. The enthusiastic praise of the "Spectator" has been more than balanced by the indifference of some English critics and the sarcasm of others. Mme. Blanc's article in the "Revue des Deux Mondes", setting forth the charm of his personality and the excellence of his poetry, met with little response in France. In view of this divergence of opinion among critics, it may be doubted if the time has yet come for anything approaching ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... down her eagerness, he saw it still fluttering in her beautiful white throat. "Then I may presume that she is caviar to the respectable?" she said with a relapse into her biting sarcasm. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... last two or three decades can no doubt furnish abundant opportunities for the jibes of the flippant, and the humour of those who consider they are endowed with a pretty wit. But the exercise of sardonic humour and an excessive sarcasm tends to promote ill-feeling and serves no useful purpose. The right spirit, in my opinion, for any man to regard Japan is as a nation struggling to obtain and assimilate all that is best in the world and aspiring to be in fact an eclectic power. It can at least be said of Japan that it is the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... stand in favour of the merciful destruction of human life in cases where suffering is unendurable and the last chance for recovery or even relief is lost. He had the courage, the foolhardiness to sign his name to the article, thereby irrevocably committing himself to the propaganda. A storm of sarcasm ensued. The great surgeons of the land ignored the article, amiably attributing it to a "young fool who would come to his senses one day." Young and striving men in the profession rushed into print,—or at least tried to do so,—with the result that Braden was ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sloane with sarcasm. "Sit down," he commanded. "Sit right where you are—on the stairs, here," and, having enforced the order, took a stethoscope from his pocket. "Get him a glass of water," he said to Hedrick, ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... with some remonstrances from his friends, for indulging so splenetic a temper, when he was writing in the cause of religion, as to wish any man accursed. Of this censure he was not insensible; in the next edition of his poems, he softened the sarcasm, by declaring, in a note, that he had no enmity to the author's person, and that when he wished him accursed, be meant not the man, but the author, which are two very distinct considerations; for an author may be accursed, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... you had said you wouldn't; for what I should do with him, if you refused to take him in hand, is a thing on which I shudder to speculate. John is forever doing questionable things, and repenting when it is too late. Unless he means to build a new wing—" with a mild attempt at sarcasm,—"I don't know where Mr. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... numerous, as it is the only day of rest for employs, and especially for the cabinet. Amongst our visitors were Seor Canedo, who is extremely agreeable in conversation, and as an orator famed for his sarcasm and cutting wit. He has been particularly kind and friendly to us ever since our arrival—General Almonte, Minister of War, a handsome man and pleasant, and an officer of great bravery—very unpopular with one party and especially ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... reply she was not expecting. For direct abuse, for sarcasm, for dignity, for almost any speech beginning, 'What! Jealous of you. Why—' she was prepared. But this was incredible. It disabled her, as the wild thrust of an unskilled fencer will disable a master of the ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... bouncing grounder through short and Ash was after it like a tiger, but it was a hit. The Buffalo contingent opened up. Then Manning faced the Rube, and he, too, vented sarcasm. It might not have been heard by the slow, imperturbable pitcher for all the notice he took. Carl edged off first, slid back twice, got a third start, and on the Rube's pitch was off for second base with the lead that always made him dangerous. Manning swung vainly, and Gregg snapped a throw to ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... done that, he'll bring thirty clerks forward to swear that no one entered Whitmore's room," said the chief, a note of sarcasm in his voice. "How are we going to obtain legal evidence, ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... throat, her hair was gathered into a disorderly knot, and already there was a dab of paint on either cheek. She had been pretty when he married her, pretty and full of an engaging sparkle, a ready wit; but the charm had gone, the wit had hardened into a habit of sarcasm. They had been married twelve years, and in itself, everything considered, that was remarkable and held a great deal in her favor. She had been faithful. It was only lately, in Nantbrook, that her dissatisfaction had ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... said vulgar—apologetic pretext that Jesus was using ad hominem arguments, or "accommodating" his better knowledge to popular ignorance, as well as to point out the inadmissibility of the other alternative, that he shared the popular ignorance. And to those who hold the latter view sarcasm is dealt out with ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... little conviction and much sarcasm in that smile. Hammersmith turned away. "Have you any instructions for me?" ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... "No sarcasm, if you please; not everybody can share your taste for princesses, who make you go a hundred leagues to follow them and then upon your arrival, only give you the tip of a glove to kiss. Such intrigues are not ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... sneering something in his ear: while I and all the city went on crying 'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' And now the reverie was ended; and there were only Lady Knollys' stern, thoughtful face, with the pale light of sarcasm on it, and the storm outside thundering and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Reserve. If they failed, he would return to Walmer for another kind of contest. The joint assault by Fox and Pitt against the Ministry on 23rd April produced a great sensation, the speech of Pitt being remarkable for its suppressed sarcasm and thinly veiled charges of inefficiency. As a call to arms, it stands without a rival. Ministers were utterly beaten in argument, and escaped defeat only by thirty-seven votes. Addington became alarmed, and advised the King, who was now convalescent, to instruct ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose |
