"Dice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scandalous fashions, are the opening of the gaols—which meant no more than the discharge of the poorest debtors—and the burning of various instruments of luxury and amusement, whether innocent or not. Among these are dice, cards, games of all kinds, written incantations, masks, musical instruments, song- books, false hair, and so forth. All these would then be gracefully arranged on a scaffold ('talamo'), a figure of the devil fastened to the top, and then the whole ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... was soon to die at Northfield, and in the quarter of a century that has passed since such a change has come over me that I not only have no desire to play cards, but it disgusts me even to see boys gamble with dice for cigars. ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... gaze upon a bland, blue-eyed bystander who had just joined the charmed circle, he murmured, invitingly: "Better try your luck, Olaf. It's Danish dice—three chances to ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... consequences of which they contemplated with dismay. Over against their fears there was nothing to be put but their leader's assurances that everything would come right. They had taken "a leap in the dark," they had staked the fortunes of the party on the dice-box, and events were to decide the issue. When the blow came Mr. Disraeli's reputation for sagacity fell to zero. At last the hollowness of his pretensions was detected, and there was no mincing of epithets for the man who had befooled and destroyed a great party. ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... argument had passed, watched the other four men in the room. They had not paid the slightest attention to the debate during its later phases. And two of them—Slim and huge Phil Marvin—had begun to roll dice on a folded blanket, the little ivories winking in the light rapidly until they came to a rest at the farther end of the cloth. Possibly this family strife was a common thing in the Pollard household. At any rate, the father now passed off from accusation to abrupt apology. "You always get ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... that depend upon chance, according to Dr. Culin, may be divided "into those in which the hazard depends upon the random fall of certain implements employed, like dice, and those in which it depends upon the guess or choice of the player; one is objective, the other subjective." Games of the first or objective class are generally played in silence, while those of the second or subjective class, ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... "Waropa" or "Burra Burra," and it is procured in barter or war from the Islanders of Torres Straits, who frequently visit the continent. It is neatly made of a solid piece of wood scooped out, in shape like an elongated dice box. One end is covered with the skin of a snake or iguana, the other being left open. When this instrument is played upon by a muscular and excited "nigger," a music results which seems to please him in proportion to its intensity; keeping time with these, and aiding with ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... brother-in-law from his presence, but otherwise visited his crime with no severer penalty than ridicule. Choosing to see in his attempts to change the place of his abode no serious design, but only the wayward conduct of a child, he sent him a present of some golden dice, implying thereby that it was only for lack of amusement he had grown discontented with his ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... this manner, for example, that loaded dice may be discovered. Of course no dice are so clumsily loaded that they must always throw certain numbers; otherwise the fraud would be instantly detected. The loading, a constant cause, mingles with the changeable causes which determine what cast will be thrown ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... low and low, along the line the whispered word is flying, Before the touch, before the time, we may not lose a breath. Their guns must mash us to the mire and there be no replying Till the hand is raised to fling us for the final dice to Death. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... merely one of the forms of gambling or treasure hunting; it is either leaving the steady plough and the steady pilgrimage of life, to look for silver mines beside the way; or else it is the full stop beside the dice-tables in Vanity Fair —investing all the thoughts and passions of the soul in the fall of the cards, and choosing rather the wild accidents of idle fortune than the calm and accumulative rewards of toil. And this is destructive ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... gather'd round the fatal board Where wealth's death rattle echoes in the dice, Her sire, Amieri, with some others pored In full abstraction of the cursed vice. Each golden piece raked from his precious hoard, Froze the vext heart-pulse of the wretch like ice. There was no sound save ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... unalterable nature or will. Even those feelings and opinions deemed most identical with eternal right and truth, it is not impossible but that, as personal persuasions, they may in reality be but the result of some chance tip of Fate's elbow in throwing her dice. For, not to go into the first seeds of things, and passing by the accident of parentage predisposing to this or that habit of mind, descend below these, and tell me, if you change this man's experiences or that man's ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... who never differed from a certain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? Would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate? Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice, that a man's connections should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? When people desert their connections, the desertion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... from a spot of rising ground not far from La Haye Sainte, had watched the advance of his Guard. His empire hung on its success. It was the last fling of the dice for him. His cavalry was wrecked, his infantry demoralised, half his artillery dismounted; the Prussian guns were thundering with ever louder roar upon his right. If the Guard succeeded, the electrifying thrill of victory would run through the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... of magic, to which there is repeated but inconsistent resort, especially, as in the medieval romances, for the protection of the good characters. Oftentimes, indeed, by the persistent loading of the dice against the villains and scapegoats, the reader's sympathy is half aroused in their behalf. Thus in the fight of the Red Cross Knight with his special enemy, the dragon, where, of course, the Knight must be ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... you that if you throw the dice, there are thirty chances to one against your turning up a particular number, and a hundred to one against your repeating the same throw three times in succession: and so on in an augmenting ratio. What is luck? Is it, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... a group of soldiers came down the road bearing a purple robe. Near the rock behind which Claudia stood concealed they seated themselves, removed their helmets and dropped dice in them. ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... thousand eyes all-scanning sweep to earth's remotest bound. Whate'er exists in heaven and earth, whate'er beyond the skies, Before the eyes of Varuna, the king, unfolded lies. The ceaseless winkings all he counts of every mortal's eyes, He wields this universal frame as gamester throws his dice. Those knotted nooses which thou fling'st, O God, the bad to snare, All liars let them overtake, but all ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... smash. When your governor, and the lawyers, and my lady and him had that tremenduous scene: he went down on his knees, my lady told Mrs. Bonner, as told me—and swoar as he never more would touch a card or a dice, or put his name to a bit of paper; and my lady was a-goin' to give him the notes down to pay his liabilities after the race: only your governor said (which he wrote it on a piece of paper, and passed it across ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it so happened that this Hamilton, who had been originally a Scotch Redshank, became privately acquainted with a beautiful and wealthy orphan girl, a relation of the O'Neils; and it so happened again, that whether they made a throw on the dice for it or not, he won her affections. So far, however, there was nothing very particularly obnoxious in it, because we know that intermarriages between Catholics and Protestants may disarm the parties of their religious prejudices ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... and skittles," or the poetic substitutes therefor, for he goes on to say that their principal duties were to picket the beach, their "pleasures and sweet rewards of toil consisting in ague which played dice with our bones, and blue mass pills that played ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... sorry for it with all my heart,' quoth he, 'and I wish thee better success another time. Though, if you will take my advice, you shall have no occasion to run any such risque. Here,' said he, taking some dice out of his pocket, 'here's the stuff. Here are the implements; here are the little doctors which cure the distempers of the purse. Follow but my counsel, and I will show you a way to empty the pocket of a queer cull without any danger of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... used in "Crown and Anchor" consists of a piece of canvas two feet by three feet. This is divided into six equal squares. In these squares are painted a club, diamond, heart, spade, crown, and an anchor, one device to a square. There are three dice used, each dice marked the same as the canvas. The banker sets up his gambling outfit in the corner of a billet and starts bally-hooing until a crowd of Tommies gather around; then the ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... the blood,—that's the hell of it all," he concluded fiercely. "This morning, when I'd had my fill of thinking things out, I took a stiff dose of chlorodyne. Smashed the bottle afterwards, in disgust. But where's the use? The dice are loaded: and no doubt one will be driven back to it again, sooner ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... States is reported to have said that when he was chief justice of one of the State courts, and he and his confreres found themselves in a quandary over the law, they were accustomed to send the sergeant- at-arms for what they called the "implements of decision"—a brace of dice and a copper cent. Thus the weightiest matters were ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... of the climate, which every day almost reduced the number, I could not help thinking my success would be much more certain and expeditious by my staying where I was, than by returning to Europe. I therefore resolved to comply with a good grace, and next day, when we were ordered to throw dice, told Morgan he needed not trouble himself, for I would voluntarily submit to the admiral's pleasure. This frank declaration was commended by the gentleman, who assured me, it should not fare the worse with me for my resignation. ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... multiple-precision computer representation for very large integers. 2. More generally, any very large number. "Have you ever looked at the United States Budget? There's bignums for you!" 3. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on the dice especially a roll of double fives or double sixes (compare {moby}, sense 4). See also ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... day Dan showed him tricks with cards—and then explained the mathematics of it, making the most puzzling mysteries seem only unusual applications of very simple principles. Another day, the puzzle-maker told him of curious problems of chance, by dice, by lotteries, and so forth, and almost before Eric realized what the old man was driving at, the essential ideas of insurance and actuary work were firmly fixed in ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... breathing," the other said, examining him; "the back o' his head's like a bag o' dice though. The skull's all splintered. He can't last. What are ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... honor, hath fled to join him," she said, looking anxiously at us, like one who perils much upon a throw of the dice. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Smilax!" I did not name them all, but turned quickly as Doloria flew into my arms. "We're saved, sweetheart! The dice have rolled for us!" ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... such a cheese for the pan, each Rabbit hound may have a preference all his own, for here the question comes up of how it melts best. Do you shave, slice, dice, shred, mince, chop, cut, scrape or crumble it in the fingers? This will vary according to one's temperament and the condition of the cheese. Generally, for best results it is coarsely grated. When it comes to making all this into a rare bit ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... gave us no heed, but played deep and eagerly. We could hear by the growls and oaths that kept company with the rattle of the dice, that the luck was not going even. One of the three won the throw, time after time, and crowed so loud at each success, that the others (as was only natural), turned first surly, then angry. But the winner heeded ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... He introduced me to a Jesuit he had in his household, who was called Adam, and he added, after telling me his name, "not the first Adam." I was told afterwards that Voltaire used to play backgammon with him, and when he lost he would throw the dice and the box at his head. If Jesuits were treated like that all the world over, perhaps we should have none but inoffensive Jesuits at last, but that happy ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... spectators at a prize fight. 'Twas all what th' joynts iv fi-nance were doin'. 'Who's that man with th' plug hat just comin' out iv th' gamblin' joint?' 'That's th' prisidint iv th' Eighth Rational.' 'An' who's that shakin' dice at th' bar?' 'That's th' head iv our greatest thrust comp'ny.' An' so it wint. To-day I read in th' pa-apers an appeal to th' good sense iv Mulligan, th' tailor. It didn't mintion his name, but it might just as well. 'Twas th' same as sayin': 'Now, ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... Orchards go down. Home and cathedral fall In ruin, and the blackened provinces Reach on to drear horizons. Soon the snow Shall cover all, and soon be stained with red, A quagmire and a shambles, and ere long Shall cold and hunger dice for helpless lives. So man gone mad, despoils the gentle earth And wages war ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... France, so that I soon learned all that is taught at such places, and, at the same time, I also learnt that which gives the finishing stroke to a young fellow's education, and makes him a gentleman, viz. all sorts of games, both at cards and dice; but the truth is, I thought, at first, that I had more skill in them than I really had, as experience proved. When my mother knew the choice I had made, she was inconsolable; for she reckoned, that had I been a clergyman I should ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... we should think it like death. Moreover, we see that even the most indolent men, men of a singular worthlessness, are still always in motion both in mind and body; and when they are not hindered by some unavoidable circumstance, that they demand a dice-box or some game of some kind, or conversation; and, as they have none of the liberal delights of learning, seek circles and assemblies. Even beasts, which we shut up for our own amusement, though they are better fed than if they were free, still do not willingly endure ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... counselled prudence. But there was something intoxicating in this battle for bare life—and for happiness! Something that went to the head and tempted them to hazard all on the cast of the dice. The leaders had given great attention to the problem of restricting the number of idle hands—it was difficult for them to procure sufficient funds. But those workers who still had work to do forsook ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and Pundita appeared. For a moment they believed that Ramabai was going to guide them to the secret gallery. But suddenly he raised his head and stared boldly at the gate. And by that sign Bruce and the colonel understood: Ramabai had taken up the dice to make his throw. The two men put their hands ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... contained in the recently published edition of his work, is, "acordaron de yrse a pohlar la costa delante hacia la costa accidental, e fueron a un grand rio (quarenta o quarenta e cico leguas de alli, pocas mas o menos) que si dice Gualdape," (ut supra, p. 628) they agreed to go and settle the coast further on towards the west coast, and sent to a large river (forty or fifty-five leagues from that place, a little more or less) which is called Gualdape. The course of the coast at these points is northeast and ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... new hat that will be about six sizes too big for him a week from now. Jim Halliday's all right as long as he keeps to his own side of the street, but he'd better not come over here or he'll be filled so full of bullets that he won't know himself from a dice box. Say, Judge, what's become of that John Chiny's pigtail they ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... him for fourteen days, because I would give him the wearing of them out; but after all this I am informed, he appeared yesterday with a new pair of the same sort. I have no better success with Mr. Whatdee'call[1] as to his buttons: Stentor[2] still roars; and box and dice rattle as loud as they did before I writ against them. Partridge[3] walks about at noon-day, and Aesculapius[4] thinks of adding a new lace to his livery. However, I must still go on in laying these ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... that lad never reads his dice wrong," he murmured, admiringly. "Oh, lady, lady! Will you watch ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... where no one knew their name or their former history, and have made a fresh start and won comparative success, but Dame Fortune, who sometimes has a use for our past however bitterly she seems to have mismanaged it, interfered again, and with fateful fingers re-flung the dice. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... his son, while partaking of various objects of enjoyment and diverse precious things, was becoming meagre, wan, and pale. And Dhritarashtra, some time after, out of affection for his son, gave his consent to their playing (with the Pandavas) at dice. And Vasudeva coming to know of this, became exceedingly wroth. And being dissatisfied, he did nothing to prevent the disputes, but overlooked the gaming and sundry other horried unjustifiable transactions ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ship's hold, because, while all the physiological machinery for action is on hand, there is no chance to work it. It is a most exasperating thing to die without making a fight for it. The so-called American duel is an abhorrent thing, because life or death is decided by a turn of the dice, not on the racially developed principle of the ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... a certain Twelfth-night, when the king opened the revels in his privy chamber by throwing dice, and losing one hundred pounds; and Pepys describes the groom-porters' rooms where gambling greatly obtained, and "where persons of the best quality do sit down with people of any, though meaner." Cursing and swearing, grumbling and rejoicing, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... honor and could not see any way out of their difficulty, neither consenting to make the slightest concession. Ninon, however, calmed the tempest by suggesting a way out of the difficulty through the hazard of the dice. Luck or good fortune for the waif declared in favor of the warrior, who made a better guardian than the Abbe could possibly have done, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... saying, "Aha, he saved others, himself he cannot save! Let him come down if he be the Messiah, the chosen of God!" My soldiers meanwhile disputed as to the apportionment of his garments; I noted the rattling of dice in the brazen helmet wherein they were casting ...
— The Centurion's Story • David James Burrell
... say; but to the rest that hover between two opinions, is it not trying? He who would understand to what a pass Catholicism, and much else, had now got; and how the symbols of the Holiest have become gambling-dice of the Basest,—must read the narrative of those things by Besenval, and Soulavie, and the other Court Newsmen of the time. He will see the Versailles Galaxy all scattered asunder, grouped into new ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... covered the walls. Indirect lighting gave a pretty gleam to the metal gadgets on the tables. Because they used a heavier ball, roulette looked about the same as on Earth, and the same went for the dice games. ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... the maple walk to the brow of the hill from which he had first looked over the valley toward the west. There in the distance the village he had noted sparkled like a handful of white dice thrown carelessly down against the earth. He fixed upon this point as the terminus of his ride, and began to coast down the long slope, leaving a trail of grey dust to mark his flight. There was a peculiar exhilaration in the dry heat of the October afternoon. Flocks of crows passed over ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... shop called "The Smoke House," filled with young men shaking dice for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, and pictures of coy fat prostitutes in ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... began to see more clearly. It struck him that this brazen-faced giant might be useful, later on. Had not Bismarck said in his now widely quoted speech: "Soon or late, the God who directs the battle will cast his iron dice!" It gave His ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... to attack Burke's pension, and thereby drew down upon himself the most splendid repartee in literature) was a bosom-friend of Fox, and lived in a like-minded society. One night at Newmarket he lost a colossal sum at hazard, and, jumping up in a passion, he swore that the dice were loaded, put them in his pocket, and went to bed. Next morning he examined the dice in the presence of his boon companions, found that they were not loaded, and had to apologize and pay. Some years afterwards one of the party was lying on his death-bed, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... approaching twain had been seen by other eyes than Cassidy's. By some odd fortuity, a phonograph broke into wheezy song as the wayfarers swung down the street. Dice began to roll invitingly across the bars, and from a distant spot came the hollow sound of the roulette-ball. Quite by chance, a man appeared in a doorway, holding a glass of beer. He was seen to drain it, just as they passed. Then he noticed them ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... twenty-four hours to blend and ripen. Put a small block of clear ice in the punch bowl, pour in the punch, then add to it either Maraschino cherries, or hulled small ripe strawberries, or pineapple or bananas, peeled and cut in tiny dice—or a mixture of all these. Serve in chilled punch cups, with after-dinner coffee spoons for the fruit. The fruit can be left out, and the punch served with sandwiches the same as iced tea. A wineglass of yellow chartreuse, added just after the rum, is ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... sought after. Theatrical exhibitions constantly take place after dinner in the houses of the rich. Cards and dice abound every where. Besides these, they have many other sports and games of chance, peculiar to the country. Cricket fighting and quail fighting are very common. To make two male crickets fight, they are placed in an earthen bowl, about five or eight inches in diameter; the owner of each, tickles ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... in manner, and agreeable to talk with. Thorstein Frode relates of this meeting, that there was an inhabited district in Hising which had sometimes belonged to Norway, and sometimes to Gautland. The kings came to the agreement between themselves that they would cast lots by the dice to determine who should have this property, and that he who threw the highest should have the district. The Swedish king threw two sixes, and said King Olaf need scarcely throw. He replied, while shaking the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... era comes to its end and the day of sancta simplicitas is quite ended. The old signs are here and the portents to warn the seer of life that we are ripe for a new epoch of artifice. Are not men rattling the dice-box and ladies dipping their fingers in the rouge-pot? At Rome, in the keenest time of her degringolade, when there was gambling even in the holy temples, great ladies (does not Lucian tell us?) did not scruple to squander all they had ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... nearest, to be even a little use. But no! I never succeed. What does it mean? What hinders me from living and working like others?... I am only dreaming of it now. But no sooner do I get into any definite position when fate throws the dice from me. I have come to dread it—my destiny.... Why is it so? Explain this enigma ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... op. cit. p. 75, says: 'Con li principi tiene modo affatto contrario al suo predecessore; perche mentre quello usava dire, il grado dei pontefici esser per mettersi sotto i piedi gl'imperatori e i re, questo dice che senza l'autorita dei principi non si puo conservare quella ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... whych for theyr couetous mynd be afeard to hyre a good master, and geue more to an horskeper then a teacher of the chyld. And yet for al that they spare no costly feastes, nyght & day thei playe at dice, and bestowe moch vpon houndes & fooles. In thys thynge onely they be sparers and nigardes, for whose cause sparinge in other thynges myght be excused. Iwold ther wer fewer whych bestowe more vpon ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... Iliad, by means of letters thrown together promiscuously or combined at random. We agree to it without hesitation; but, ingenuously, are the letters which compose a poem thrown with the hand in the manner of dice? It would avail as much to say, we could not pronounce a discourse with the feet. It is nature, who combines according to necessary laws, under given circumstances, a head organized in a mode suitable to bring forth a poem: it is nature who assembles the elements, which furnish man with a brain ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... himself keep out of it. So Will promised as much as his aunt or his mother chose to demand from him, gave them his word that he would never play—no, never; and when the family retired to rest, Mr. Will would walk over with a dice-box and a rum-bottle to cousin Harry's quarters, where he, and Hal, and his reverence would sit and play ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... others far more important; for instance, a big, clumsy canoe of black oak, which was soft as soap when it first came up out of its hiding-place in the thick peat bog, but was hardened afterward by various scientific tricks. I confess to more interest in the dice boxes and dice, some of which the sly old Celtic foxes had loaded. Cheating isn't precisely a modern ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... form, and many experiments did I try, to determine from which of those tickets I might most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable to satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusement of throwing them in a garret; and, examining the event by an exact register, found, on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers had been turned ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... ship. Many of the seamen who had free access to the spirit-room were also constantly tipsy at night, though the chief mutineers, from necessity, kept sober. The once well-ordered man-of-war soon became like a lawless buccaneer. The men rolled about the decks half tipsy, some were playing cards and dice between the guns, some were fighting, and others were sleeping in any shady place ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... devil in a dice-box do you mean?' said Slicer, possessing himself of my watch. 'Who is the blasted cove?—not that I care a flash ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the commercial part of the town, the out-door gambler forms a conspicuous feature of the Sabbath, seated upon a cloth spread upon the ground, and armed with cards, dice, cups, and other instruments. With voluble tongue and expressive pantomime urging the passer-by to try his luck, he meets with varying success. Many who are drawn into the net are adroitly permitted to win a little, and afterwards to lose much. Sailors on shore ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... wrote:—'It is scarcely possible to pass an hour in honest conversation, without being able, when we rise from it, to please ourselves with having given or received some advantages; but a man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice, from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a confused remembrance of ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Rackham casts the dice," said Jack. "But it means playing the hazard in the midst of this storm. How can it be done? A forlorn venture. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... he couldn't—not in her father's time. The cards and dice were going in her great-uncle's time, who drank himself to death forty years ago. "There used to be some packs of cards," said she, "in one of these drawers. I know I saw some there, only it's a long time back—almost ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... quarrelling children. "Gently, friends, gently," he said; "there is a pleasant way to end this dilemma." Then he turned to me, and I never saw his face serener. "Friend Lappo," he said, "will you lend me your dice-bones a minute?" ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in every line of the figure that holds the dice box, and in every line of the figure in the background is nervous fear for the result of the throw—fear that is fully justified. But Death, master of the game, waits complacently to mark the score, knowing that these two gamblers ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... shall play at cards or dice either for his apparel or arms upon pain of being disarmed and made a ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... As to cards and dice, I think the safest and best way is never to learn to play them, and so be incapacitated for those dangerous temptations and encroaching ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... had placed the model of St. Peter's on the table before him; Correggio had an angel at his side; Titian was seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido was accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him; Claude held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Cast on the Court a dancing ray; Here to the harp did minstrels sing; There ladies touched a softer string; With long-eared cap and motley vest The licensed fool retailed his jest; His magic tricks the juggler plied; At dice and draughts the gallants vied; While some, in close recess apart, Courted the ladies of their heart, Nor courted them in vain; For often in the parting hour Victorious Love asserts his power O'er coldness and disdain; And flinty is her heart, can view To battle march ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... freed, what would be too great for the accomplishment of that desire? for the extinction of that Sigh of Ages? Let us hope. They have hoped these thousand years. The very revolvement of the chances may bring it—it is upon the dice. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... that not everybody at the Academy comes here for physical or mental improvement. We see a little group squatting and gesticulating earnestly under an old olive tree—they are obviously busy, not with philosophic theory, but with dice. Again, two young men pass us presenting a curious spectacle. They are handsomely dressed and over handsomely scented, but each carries carefully under each arm a small cock; and from time to time they are halted by fiends who admire the birds. Clearly these ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... forces engaged shall be equal in number and similar in composition. The methods of handicapping are obvious. A slight inequality (chances of war) may be arranged between equal players by leaving out 12 men on each side and tossing with a pair of dice to see how many each player shall take of these. The best arrangement and proportion of the forces is in small bodies of about 20 to 25 infantry-men and 12 to 15 cavalry to a gun. Such a force can maneuver comfortably on ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... Dunce, Remembering she herself was Pertness once. Now (Shame to Fortune!) an ill run at play Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin third day; Swearing and supperless the hero sate, Blasphem'd his gods, the dice, and damn'd his fate; Then gnaw'd his pen, then dasht it on the ground, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Plung'd for his sense, but found no bottom there, Yet wrote and flounder'd on in mere ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... were sufficient to explain any amount of anxiety. It was the second week of July, 1870; and the destinies of France trembled, as upon a cast of the dice, in the hands of a few presumptuous incapables. Was it war with Prussia, or was it peace, that was to issue from the complications ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... form of this fondness for taking needless risks.—The gambler is too feeble in will, too empty in mind, too indolent in body to carve out his destiny with his own right hand. And so he stakes his well-being on the throw of the dice; the turn of a wheel; or the speed of a horse. This invocation of fortune is a confession of the man's incompetence and inability to solve the problem of his life satisfactorily by his own exertions. ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... to be with him at half past six in the morning. He took them with him, without encouraging them or promising them anything, and without concealing from them that their luck, and even his own, depended upon the cast of the dice. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Cards, dice, brethren's brethren, father's money, sickness of private enemies, enemies of friends, death of kings, friends of enemies, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... other, this ultra-human side, which ran to such commonplaces as bowling, tennis-playing, golf, billiards, cards and gambling with the dice—a thing which always struck me as having an odd turn to it in connection with Peter, since he could be interested in so many other things, and yet he pursued these commonplaces with as much gusto at times as one possessed of a mania. At others he seemed not ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... features in some circles of the social world right around you? Idolatry! you cannot find any more gross, any more cruel, on the broad earth, than within the area of a mile around this pulpit. Dark minds from which God is obscured; deluded souls, whose fetish is the dice-box or the bottle; apathetic spirits, steeped in sensual abomination, unmoved by a moral ripple, soaking in the slump of animal vitality. False gods, more hideous, more awful, than Moloch or Baal; worshipped with shrieks, worshipped with curses, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... Hall, the vault which contained the remains of this lady and her family was accidentally broken into, and that the bodies of herself, her husband, and some children, were found decapitated, with their heads under their arms; moreover, that in all the coffins there were dice. My informant had read an authenticated account of this curious circumstance, which was drawn up at the time of the discovery, but he could not refer me to it, and it is very possible that either his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... little further remembrance of this impertinence, go among the gamesters, and there nothing is more frequent than, "God damn the dice," or "God damn ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... Miss! Dey was gettin' mighty desprit. An de big feller, he says, 'Hit don't much matter which way de dice falls, I'm de bigges' an' I certainly kin holt ma own wid a little runt like you!' He says jes' lak' dat to his friend, de ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... emotional issue," he said, the words carving the thoughts to shape. "Logic has nothing to do with it. There are some who want so badly to go to Rustum and be free, or whatever they hope to be there, that they'll dice with their lives for the privilege—and their wives' and children's lives. Others went reluctantly, against their own survival instincts, and now that they think they see a way of retreat, something they can justify to ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... him at eleven o'clock, Captain Sweetsir had no trouble at all in disguising his gratification and in assuming the approved, sour demeanor of military gravity. Even then his ears, sharpened by his indignation, caught the clicking of dice on tiles. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... creatures whom the wealth of men like that has driven to despair? Shall we base God's altar in the bones of harlots, plaster it up with the slime of sweating-dens and slums, give it over for a gaming-table to the dice of gamblers and ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... to each end of which a small wax taper was attached. He was then blindfolded, and at the beat of a drum, fell upon his knees, and laid his head upon the ground. As soon as the word pardon was pronounced, he instantly sprang upon his feet. Dice were then thrown upon the head of a drum, and he told the numbers that were thrown up, by bowing his head as many times as there were numbers indicated. He discharged a pistol, by drawing with his teeth a string ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... and emptied. Cards and dice were then called for. The company drew their chairs into a closer circle round the table; deep play, and deeper drinking, set in. The Palais resounded with revelry until the morning sun looked into the great window, blushing red at the scene of drunken riot that had become ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... young chicken, one sliced onion, a bay leaf, two cloves, a blade of mace and six pepper-corns. Simmer in the covered kettle for one hour and set aside to cool. When cool remove the meat from the bones, rejecting the skin. Cut the meat into small dice. Mix in a saucepan, over a fire without browning, a tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of flour, then add half a pint of cream. Stir this constantly until it boils, then add a truffle, two dozen mushrooms chopped fine, ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... all hellish enough!—Well, on one side of the dice, prisoner of war; on the other, death here under poor Caliph. Might escape from prison, no escape from death. By Jove, what a thunderclap! It's Stonewall Jackson ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... through the butcher shop and the galley to the cabin table. The cook was an able, swearing man whose culinary experience had been acquired on a Nantucket whaler. Cooks who could stand up for service every day in a small ship on an angry sea when the galley rattled like a dice box in the hands of a nervous player, were hard to get. Their constitutions were apt to be better than their art. The food was of poor quality, the cooking a tax upon jaw, palate and digestion, the service unclean. When good weather came, by and by, and those who had not tasted ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... a decisive throw of the fateful dice. Calling the turnkey, he asks for paper and pencil. These are brought. Pierre writes a brief note to Sir Donald Randolph, handing it open to the surprised watcher. It is a simple request that Sir Donald come at once to see Pierre ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... in this pond dried up, we were soon obliged to move again. One of the Bushmen took out his dice, and, after throwing them, said that God told him to go home. He threw again in order to show me the command, but the opposite result followed; so he remained and was useful, for we lost the oxen again by a ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone |
