"Dolt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has marked To suffer for too firm a faithfulness.— An Emperor's chide is a command to die.— By him accursed, forsaken by my friend, Awhile stern England's prisoner, then unloosed Like some poor dolt unworth captivity, Time serves me now for ceasing. Why not cease?... When, as Shades whisper in the chasmal night, "Better, far better, no percipience here."— O happy lack, that I should have no child To come ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... admit the rest. You were too curious in your inquiries of the dolt who declares he was robbed by us of his provisions and sails. The false-tongued villain! It may be well for him to keep from my path, or he may get a lesson that shall prick his honesty. Does he think such pitiful game as he would induce me to spread a single inch of canvas, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... foolish toys, yet, you good gods! what Palemon, what Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of themselves? And so, I know not by what tricks, they bring it about that to their boys' foolish mothers and dolt-headed fathers they pass for such as they fancy themselves. Add to this that other pleasure of theirs, that if any of them happen to find out who was Anchises' mother, or pick out of some worm-eaten manuscript a word not commonly known—as suppose it bubsequa for a cowherd, bovinator ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... work on different lines, do we not? I wonder which of us has dirtied his hands the most. Which of the two—the two fools who quarrelled about a woman. Ha? And she married a third—a dolt. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... well, Falfani," said Lord Blackadder, with a sigh of satisfaction. "But what of your friend Tiler? Thick-headed dolt, unable to keep awake, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... sense of duty, but it mortified him greatly to think that he could not succeed as the other boys did. For you know it is hard to succeed at anything unless your heart is in it. And so one night he sat down and cried to think he must always be a dolt. His mother found him weeping and tried to comfort him. She walked out in the dusky evening with him and talked. But poor David, for that was his name, was broken-hearted. He had tried with all his might to get interested ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... know what you are doing. You are setting up a gin in the same place you have set it twenty times before. Twenty times you have set the gin up there and never caught anything, and yet you cannot see, and you cannot understand, and you never learn anything, and you are the biggest dolt and idiot that ever walked, or rather, you would be, only I thank heaven everybody else is just like you! As if I could not hear what you are doing; as if I did not look very carefully before I come out of my hole, and before I put my foot down on grass ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... the words the truth rushed like a flash of inspiration across Cleek's mind. The cause of Germany! what a dolt he was not to have thought of that before! There was but one phrase ever used for that among the Kaiser's people, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... rid of that Edward Benden. Then I'd set Alice in her brother Roger's house, to look after him and Christabel. She'd be as happy as the day is long, might she dwell with them, and had that cantankerous dolt off her hands for good. Eh dear! but if Master Hall, my father-in-law, that made Alice's match with Benden, but had it to do o'er again, I reckon he'd think twice and thrice afore he gave her to that toad. The foolishness o' ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... department, and is a ninny for doing so!" said Mr. Torpedo, member of Congress. "The man that depends on Jeff Davis, or his war secretary, is a double-distilled dolt. Jeff thinks he's a soldier, and apes Napoleon. But you can't depend on him, Desperade. Look at Johnston! He fooled him. Look at Beauregard—he envies and fears him, so he keeps him down. Don't depend on the President, Desperade, or you'll be a ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... fool. He has been caught in two lies; first the Bethunes, then the Comte de Mar. He is a clumsy spy; they might have found a better one. Not but what that touch about ill-treatment at Monsieur's hand was well thought of. That was Monsieur's suggestion, I warrant, for the boy has talked like a dolt else." ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... tongue, wilt thou, thou dolt," said Annot, deeply offended. "Boullin indeed! I danced with him last harvest-home; I know not why, unless for sheer good-nature; and now, forsooth, I am to have Boullin for ever thrust in my teeth. Bah! I hate a baker. I would as lieve take a ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the theory of Professor Muller, professor of anatomy and physiology at the University of Lippe-Schweidnitz, and court physician, that Adalbert cast back to his great-grandfather Franz, who had been known to his irreverent subjects as "The Dolt." ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... her with his common face, moved mysteriously by some feeling she resented even more than she resented his presence. He was too grossly ignorant to know that a man of breeding, having entered by chance, would have turned and gone away, professing not to have seen. He seemed to think—the dolt!—that he must ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... best. Aemil. Thou hast not halfe that powre to do me harm, As I haue to be hurt. Oh Gull, oh dolt, As ignorant as durt: thou hast done a deed (I care not for thy Sword) Ile make thee known, Though I lost twenty liues. Helpe, helpe, hoa, helpe: The Moore hath kill'd my Mistris. Murther, murther. Enter ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... pleases;" i.e., "As a Judge, you are a stupid, self-sufficient dolt; but so long as my client, the solicitor, gets his costs, it doesn't matter a jot to me or him what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... enduring from age to age, and each royal generation adding new splendors to those accumulated by their predecessors. If one views the matter in another way, to be sure, we may feel indignant that such dolt-heads, rowdies, and every way mean people, as many of the English sovereigns have been, should inhabit these stately halls, contrasting its splendors with their littleness; but, on the whole, I readily consented within myself to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that Boyd, being called upon, instantly contrived some impromptu verses amid general approbation—for his intelligence was as lithe and graceful as his body was agile. And our foppish Ensign, who was no dolt by a long shot either, made a most deft rondeau in flattery of the ladies, turning it so neatly and unexpectedly that we all drew our side-arms and, thrusting them aloft, cheered both him and the fair subjects of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... of curious experiment, I made the attempt once, in a case of a handsome dolt, who was, nominally, a domestic in my employ for a few months. She had an affected pose and tread which she conceived to be majestic. She was stupid, awkward and slovenly about her work, and altogether so "impossible" that I disliked to send her adrift upon the world, and was still more averse ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... children hunted for this Mouse, But she was not a dolt To wait 'till she was caught, but made Right through ...
— The Mouse and the Christmas Cake • Anonymous
... him showed dark against the moon-lit sky before they limped off, and, joining their fellows, gathered in a little knot at a distance from their fractious pupil, and discussed his merits with great freedom. They voted him an ill-natured brute, a stupid dolt—in short, a perfect donkey. Scarcely had they arrived at this unanimous conclusion, when—pop! pop! bang! bang!—four loud reports, and four little rabbits lay in ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with a belly full of ice," said he musingly. "I have wronged him. He has a tongue on him, he has that. And here I have been judging from his appearance that he was a mere common dolt. And, what, Mr. O'Ruddy," he added, "were you pleased to say to the gentlemen which I would not care to hear with my ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... shook with laughter. "Fancy anybody being such a dolt as to rehearse without a minister!" ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... a little into this matter. Is knowledge—a knowledge of those sciences which are intimately connected with agriculture as an art—of no value to the farmer? Is it necessary that he should be a dolt in order to be fitted for his vocation? Will ignorance and bad husbandry increase his crops or enable him to find a better market for his products? Or, will his enjoyment, in his daily round of toil, be ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... him a peculiar look, one of those looks which an adept in the ways of life, in its crooked paths and unprincipled impostures, not unfrequently bestows upon the poor aristocratic dolt whom he is plundering to his face. The look we speak of might be mistaken for surprise—it might be mistaken for pity—but it ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... no scruples," thought the Baron, standing transfixed for a few minutes. "What! That woman believes she can make use of his passion to be quit of that dolt, as she counted on Marneffe's decease!—I shall be the instrument ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Should he get work in Montreal, he would study French. A man's intellect grows by learning whatever accident throws in his way, and the man who, from foolish conceit, refuses to take advantage of his opportunities remains a dolt. Read and observe, he said, and you will be able to say and do when your fellows are helpless. He got cuttings of canvas from the bosun, shaped them into a blouse, and got me to sew them together. The other boys laughed at me, and called me the wee tailor, but the blouse did me good service for ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... Mademoiselle Madeleine's fault," cried M. de Bois, coming to the rescue. "It was my folly,—another blunder of mine! I was dolt enough to think that you had only to see her for all to be well; and, instead of warning Mademoiselle Madeleine that you were in Washington, I kept from her a knowledge which would have prevented your encountering each other. It was all my imprudence, my miscalculation! I see my error ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... titter an' chuckle. I fancied he cast a wink. 'Twas a broad joke he was playin' with, whatever an' all; an' I wished I knowed what amused the dolt. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... he will not travel on. Tyresias to Narcissus promised Much prosperous hap and many golden days, If of his beauty he no knowledge took. Knowledge breeds pride, pride breedeth discontent: Black discontent, thou urgest to revenge: Revenge opes not her ears to poor men's prayers. That dolt destruction is she without doubt, That hales her forth and feedeth her with nought. Simplicity and plainness, you I love! Hence, double diligence, thou mean'st deceit: Those that now serpent-like ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... desire in his tone seared Valerie's brain into action. With a shock she realized that there she was standing like a dolt, quietly watching Lyveden cudgelling his brains for the password back to Insanity. Any second he might stumble upon it. For once, mercifully, his memory was sluggish—would not respond. And there he was flogging it, to extract that hideous fatal delusion that ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... skirt-folds, and it had not occurred to him to exclaim even in his own heart: "With your girlishness and your ferocity, your intimidating seriousness and your delicious absurdity, I would give a week's wages just to take hold of you and shake you!" No! The dolt had seen absolutely naught but a conscientious female beginner learning the duties of the post which he himself had baptized as that of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... say 'done.' And as to the girl, since I cannot find her (which, on penalty of being threshed to a mummy, you will take care not to let out), I would agree to leave Mr. Darrell free to disown her. But are you such a dolt as not to see that I put the ace of trumps on my adversary's pitiful deuce, if I depose that my own child is not my own child, when all I get for it is what I equally get out of you, with my ace of trumps still in my hands? Basta!—I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and dropped the brush. "Dolt! Boob! Moron! Idiot!" Not Willows. Himself. There was no reason on earth—or Luna—why he couldn't walk over to Number One hot lab and get the stuff himself. The habit of never leaving the lab without thorough decontamination was so thoroughly ingrained in him that he had simply never thought ...
— The Bramble Bush • Gordon Randall Garrett
... said about a dolt who took credit for the merits of his ancestors: "Like the Potato, all that was good about ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... where we must give Our lives that we may learn to live! A dolt is he who memorizes Lessons that leave ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... harm you must do something, and he never did anything. If it wasn't you who said he was a dolt, it must ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... him for the information he gave me on the score of how and by whom I was nursed. So have I. Because he did not tell me before, and because when he told me he would not tell me enough. He has no eyes, this Leduc. He is a dolt, who only sees the half of what happens, and only remembers the half ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... with beaming face, forgetting already the day's worry, "are they raly our own boys? Sure, an' it's a dolt I am, not to know what the tallest one meant ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... me the "Raw Recruit," The joke of the awkward squad, The rook of the rookies to boot, And a bumpkin, a dolt and a clod; But this much I'll plead in defense I seem popular with these chaps, For they keep me a'moving thither and hence From ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... to us, and we send again the lord and his knights to watch the pass; for we say that such an one the Fathers of old time have not sent us. But again, when we have seen to the new-comer that he is well-fashioned of his body, all is not done; for we deem that never would the Fathers send us a dolt or a craven to be our king. Therefore we bid the naked one take to him which he will of these raiments, either the ancient armour, which now thou bearest, lord, or this golden raiment here; and if he take the war-gear, as thou takedst it, King, it is well; but if he ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... it!' he said, 'they're both up to some folly. Mr. von Rambow is quite changed this summer, he isn't like the same person. He goes about in a dream, forgets all that I tell him, and so I can't rely on him as I used to do. And as for that other stupid dolt, he's worse than ever.' Now, Mrs. Behrens, pray don't be angry with Hawermann for calling your nephew a 'stupid dolt.'" "Certainly not," replied Mrs. Behrens, "for that's just what he is." "Well, you see that all happened a week ago, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... music, they speedily got together a few scrapers, and began such an academia as drove me to one end of the room, whilst they possessed the other. The hopes and heir of the family—a coarse chubby dolt of about eighteen—played out of all time, and during the interval of repose he gave his elbow, burst out into a torrent of commonplace, which completed, you may imagine, ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled. Certainly that smile was intended for him; it was discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for. That smile meant to say: 'How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... his lip in mortified chagrin. He cursed himself inwardly for a fool and a dolt—the more pitiable because he accounted himself cunning above others. Had he but kept his temper, had he done no more than maintain the happy pretence that he was a slave to the orders he had received—a mere machine—he might ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... with numbed heart, stale lips, venting his rage He swore he'd be a dolt, a traitor, a damned fool, If, when the guns stopped, ever again from youth to age He broke the early-rising, early-sleeping rule. No, though more bestial enemies roused a fouler war Never again would he bear this, ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... still sat dazed. Never had any man felt such a fool. Here he was firmly and legally wedded, and he dare not even address a word to his bride. He had spoken no syllable of gladness or affection—triple dolt—quadruple fool—prize-winner among idiots! He had nothing to say—he could say nothing. Nor was it the presence of a third person which prevented him. Perhaps, rather, something in Patsy's eye, and, though that he would not acknowledge, a lurking grimness ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... net of shining haze Silvers the horizon wall, And with softness touching all, Tints the human countenance With a color of romance, And infusing subtle heats, Turns the sod to violets, Thou, in sunny solitudes, Rover of the underwoods, The green silence dolt displace With thy ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... green shoulders that nearly tumbled their owner from the saddle. "Now, I was right to call you elf, for you have more than human cleverness!" the Etheling cried gayly. "Do so, by all means, dear lad; and I promise in return that I will tell every puffed-up dolt at home that you are the blithest comrade who ever fitted himself to man's moods. There, if that contents you, give wings to ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... I pick out a husband here—and her children can play in China if they want to? Are you crazy? Pshaw," turning away in disgust, "I just waste words in opening my heart's dear secrets to a dolt like you." ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... stupid, fellow, dolt. Haud, hold, keep. Hawkie, cow. Hawslock, throat-lock, choicest wool. Heapet, heaped. Heie, they. Het, hot. Hie, high, highly. Hight, was called. Hiltring, hiding. Hing, hang. Hinny, honey, sweet. Hirple, hop. Histie, bare, dry. Hizzie, girl, jade. Hoddin, jogging. Hoddin ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... work of his parents had been stopped by their death, but it was by no means finished with the construction of the machine. To the contrary, the real work had only begun with the completion of the first working model. And whether he turned out to be a machine-made genius, an over-powered dolt, or an introverted monster it was still his own personal reason ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... enigmatical to the average member, who would, ordinarily, look upon the author as a dolt or pretender. They do not dare to do either in the case of Mr. Knox; therefore, the conclusion that he is indifferent. Never have the men associated with Mr. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... grow there?" No matter when—a poet's muse is To make them grow just where she chooses): "You shapeless nothing in a dish, You that are but almost a fish, I scorn your coarse insinuation, And have most plentiful occasion To wish myself the rock I view, Or such another dolt as you. For many a grave and learned clerk, And many a gay unlettered spark, With curious touch examines me If I can feel as well as he; And when I bend, retire, and shrink, Says, 'Well—'tis more than one would think.' Thus life is spent! ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... nor did he exhibit the slightest repugnance at being called upon to clean his master's shoes, brush his coat, or dress his periwig. In vain did the sour old man hurl such epithets as 'fool,' 'blockhead,' 'dolt,' at his musical valet in return for the latter's attempts to minister to his personal comforts. Haydn's sole object was to be near Porpora in order that he might garner each crumb of knowledge—each hint, however ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the door, and let ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... occasionally "glancing like a meteor from the bottom to the top of the form." His schoolfellow, Mr. Claud Russell, remembers that he once made a great leap in consequence of the stupidity of some laggard on what is called the dult's (dolt's) bench, who being asked, on boggling at cum, "what part of speech is with?" answered, "a substantive." The Rector, after a moment's pause, thought it worth while to ask his dux—"Is with ever a substantive?" ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... "Dolt! Clod! Worm!" cried she 'twixt gnashing teeth, and then all in a moment she was gazing down at me soft and gentle-eyed, red lips up-curving and smooth cheek dimpling to ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the English?"—"If I cannot escape them, they will take me: their government is good for nothing, but the nation is great, noble, generous; they will treat me as I ought to be treated. After all, what would you have me do? Do you wish, that I should suffer myself to be taken here like a dolt by Wellington, and give him the pleasure of parading me in triumph through the streets of London like King John? Since my services are refused, there is but one step I can take: to depart. The destinies will do the rest."—"There is still another, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... his loof, [peeped, palm] Quo' scho, 'Wha lives will see the proof, [Quoth she] This waly boy will be nae coof, [choice, dolt] I think we'll ca' him ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir Leopold that had for his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... toward a police station, but another spirit carried her past, for she would visualize the sure consequences of such an exposure. If her suspicions were false, she would be exposed as a combination of dastard and dolt. If they were true, she would be sending Sir Joseph and Lady Webling ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... weep and weep, For pauper, dolt, and slave! Hark! from wasted moor and fen, Feverous alley, stifling den, Swells the wail of Saxon men— ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... and then in a flash all the fathomless depths of Bazarov's conceit dawned upon him. 'Are you and I gods then? at least, you're a god; am not I a dolt then?' ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Achocre dolt, ass. Ah bah! (Difficult to render in English, but meaning much the same as "Well! well!") Ah be! eh bien. Alles kedainne to go quickly, to skedaddle. Bachouar a fool. Ba su! bien sur. Bashin large copper-lined stew-pan. Batd'lagoule chatterbox. Bedgone ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... replied Colville, with an odd smile. "I think there is nothing else to be done—it is all so complete. We are all so utterly fooled by this man whom all the world took to be a dolt. On Tuesday morning he arrested seventy-eight of the Representatives. When Paris awoke, the streets had been placarded in the night with the decree of the President of the Republic. The National Assembly ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... dolt! While thou art fondling that serpent of thine, thy mistress's affairs may go hang! Haste with the treasure, or feel my anger. While thy useless eyes were mooning on nothing, the strangers have escaped. They are even now getting sail on the white vessel. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Billy came in smart and handsome, I'll aver, Yet, with all his brains and beauty, he's not good enough for her: Now, though I'm somewhat homely and in gumption quite a dolt, The quality of goodness is my best and strongest holt, And as goodness is the only human thing that doesn't wane, I wonder she preferred to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... O Aga!" cried Babadul to Mansouri, "I was ignorant of what I was saying. Who would have thought it? Ass, fool, dolt, that I am, not to have known better. Bismillah! in the name or the Prophet, pray come to my house; your steps will be fortunate, and your slave's head will ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... it to be As if all words of mine in praise of him Were as the veriest dolt that saw the sun; And God had spoken him and said to him: "I bid you tell me what you think of it." And he should answer: "Oh, the sun is nice." So sadly fitted I to ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... of a settlement, jointure, or pin-money. She takes the will for the deed all through the piece, and is so besotted with this ignorant, vulgar notion of rank and title as a real thing that cannot be counterfeited that she is the dupe of her own fine stratagems, and marries a gull, a dolt, a broken adventurer for an accomplished and brave gentleman. Her meanness is equal to her folly and her pride (and nothing can be greater), yet she holds out on the strength of her original pretensions ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... hopeless, and Miss Rylance felt she was wasting herself upon a dolt. After this she hardly took the trouble to suppress her yawns; yet if she had condescended to question Peter about his Alpine adventures, or to talk about his horses, guns, and dogs, she would have found him lively enough as a companion; ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... which Bliss would not have succeeded even as well as he did. Bliss was a strong active fellow, and good at the games, so that with most of the school he got on very well; but, nevertheless, he was generally set down as nearly half-witted—a mere dolt. Dolt or not, he did Charlie inestimable service; and if any boy is in like case with Bliss, let him take courage, for even the merest dolt has immense power for good as well as for harm, and Bliss extended to Charlie a gentle ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... dolt! you wretch!" howled Almayer, with all the appearance of having gone mad. "Call the men! Get along ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... Borroughcliffe, in bitter irony, "you are entrusted by our excellent host with a message to his agent; will you do a similar service to me, and write a report to the commander of the district, and just tell him what a dolt—ay, use the plainest terms, and say what an ass one Captain Borroughcliffe has proved himself in this affair? You may throw in, by way of episode, that he has been playing bo-peep with a rebellious young lady from the Colonies, and, like a great boy, has ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... after a little practice, although my muscles had not grown, nor my strength increased during the time. And I found that whatever the exertion might be there was always some trick or knack, however indescribable, by means of which the man with a brain could surpass a dolt at anything, though the latter were his equal in strength. But it sometimes happens that the trick can be taught and even improved on. And it is in all cases Forethought, even in the lifting of weights or the willing on the morrow to write ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... believed literally that cowards had white livers] dolt!" cried Dr Thorpe sharply, and took the matchlock out of his hands. "Go behind for a child as ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... malicious wife. She beats me, the bailiff drives me to work as if I were an animal, and the deacon makes a cuckold of me. Haven't I good reason to drink? Don't I have to use the means nature gives us to drive away our troubles? If I were a dolt, I shouldn't take it to heart so, and I shouldn't drink so much, either; but it's a well-known fact that I am an intelligent man; so I feel such things more than others would, and that's why I have to drink. My neighbor ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... wait a moment—idiot, I think it was—no, no, it was fool or dolt. Yes; his majesty said that the man who had thought of the vin de Melun was something of ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... we the vows remember'd which It drives us to! But, danger past, Kind Providence is paid the last. No earthly debt is treated so. 'Now, Jove,' the wretch exclaims, 'will wait; He sends no sheriff to one's gate, Like creditors below;' But, let me ask the dolt, What ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... until I have learned clearly what this is which I am to practise, and how I may acquire it. And if you find me assenting to your words, and hereafter not doing that to which I assented, call me 'dolt,' and deem me unworthy of receiving further instruction. Once more, then, tell me what you and Pindar mean by natural justice: Do you not mean that the superior should take the property of the inferior ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... fine things, to be sure! But flattery indiscriminately bestowed leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. He wishes Loudon for his neighbor, forsooth, as if a man could have any rational intercourse with such an ignorant, ill-bred, awkward dolt as he is." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... O dolt of a John Hayes! If the landlady had allowed the Captain and the maid to have their way, and meet but for a minute before recruits, sergeant, and all, it is probable that no harm would have been done, and that this history would never ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fluttered affectation of gaiety to all the agitation of fury; his eyes sparkled, his mouth foamed, his hands were clenched "don't mention his name, sir," he vociferated, "unless you would see me go mad in your presence! That I should have been such a miserable dolt such an infatuated idiotsuch a beast endowed with thrice a beast's stupidity, to be led and driven and spur-galled by such a rascal, and under such ridiculous pretences!Mr. Oldbuck, I could tear myself when I ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... dolt in Tunstall Forest," returned Hatch, visibly ruffled by these threats. "Get ye to your arms before Sir Oliver come, and leave prating for one good while. An ye had talked so much with Harry the Fift, his ears would ha' been richer than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from mine. Some look for noble blood in a wife, some for understanding, others for money, and others again for beauty, and of the latter class I am one. As for high birth, thank Heaven and my ancestors I am well enough off in that respect; as for understanding, provided a woman is neither a dolt nor a simpleton, there is no need of her having a very subtle wit; in point of wealth, I am amply provided by my parents; but beauty is what I covet, with no other addition than virtue and good breeding. If my wife brings me this, I will thank Heaven for the gift, and make my parents ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that power to do me harm As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt! As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed,— I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known, Though I lost twenty lives.—Help! help, ho! help! The Moor hath kill'd ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... had not needed to be much with him in order to discover that this physician was but a dolt, had never such a jolly time in palming off his strange stories upon him, while the physician, on his part, was marvellously delighted with Bruno; to whom, having bidden him to breakfast, and thinking ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... de Guise will lead to a horrible persecution, and I pray for it with all my might. Our reverses are preferable to success. The Reformation has an object to gain in being attacked; do you hear me, dolt? It cannot hurt us to be defeated, whereas Catholicism is at an end if we should win but a single battle. Ha! what are my lieutenants?—rags, wet rags instead of men! white-haired cravens! baptized apes! O God, grant me ten years more of life! If I die too soon the cause ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... thou curse, thou shame, thou sin, with what tides of pseudo talent hast thou not filled this ambitious town? Ass, dolt, miscalculator, quack, pretender, how many hast thou befooled, thou father of multifarious fools? Serpent, tempter, evil one, how many hast thou seduced from the plough tail, the carpenter's bench, the schoolmaster's desk, the rural scene, to plunge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... "Dolt!" cried Chicot, "you see that it is decidedly you who are drunk, for you cannot reach me across the table, while my arm is six inches longer than yours, and my sword as much longer than your sword; ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... underwear, etc. She prepared a 6 o'clock breakfast for us, fried pork, mashed potatoes, mince pie, and for me, at my especial request, a plate of delicious baked sweet apples and a pitcher of rich milk. Now for the moral of this story: When we came to pay our bill, the dolt of a husband took the money and put it in his pocket. He had not lifted a hand to lighten that woman's burdens, but had sat and talked with the men in the bar room, not even caring for the baby, yet the law gives him the right to every dollar she earns, and when she needs two cents ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... this world from which it would be desirable to see men delivered, it is from a certain small, cheap wisdom which expresses itself in general verdicts on all humanity, and enables the fribbler or dolt who can not see beyond his nose to give an offhand summary of the infinite. There is 'an aping of the devil' in this flippant assumption of our immutability, which strangely combines the pitiful and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... guilders are we out of pocket," cried both these great men. "Was ever such a brainless dolt ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... has wormed himself into all its secrets, made himself master of all its intrigues, conspired with my own son-in-law against me, debauched my guards,—indeed so woven his web of deceit, that my life is safe no longer, than he believes me the imperial dolt which I have affected to seem, in order to deceive him; fortunate that even so can I escape his cautionary anticipation of my displeasure, by avoiding to precipitate his measures of violence. But were this sudden storm of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... zounds, I see my whole error at once! Oh, Helen, Helen—for mercy's sake one moment more!—She's gone—and has left me in anger! but I will see her again, and obtain her forgiveness—fool, idiot, dolt, ass, that I am, to suffer my cursed temper to master reason and affection at the risk of losing the dearest blessing of life—a lovely ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... fascinating bit of scandal is to be rehearsed, packed off to bed just as everybody is settled down for a charming evening, bothered about their lessons when their play is but fairly under way, and hedged and hampered on every side. It is true that all this may be for their good, but, my dear dolt, what of that? So everything is for the good of grownup people; but does that make us contented? It is doubtless for our good in the long run that we lose our pocketbooks, and break our arms, and catch a fever, and have our brothers defraud ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... those bramble flowers, you dolt!" she retorted, springing to her knees. The foot paused and then descended clumsily on the frail branch, and raising her eyes she saw above her the bewildered face of a slouching man with a thin sunburnt beard, and white arms showing ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... a wilful lie, Mary, you know. I'd scorn it, and I never break my word,—but still, look at truth's reward,—here! the home of an honest man, and there!' he pointed towards the castle. 'Ah! forgive me, Mary, stupid dolt, that I am.' ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... said Ralph, 'that you are dolt enough to forgive or forget, very readily, the violence that was committed upon you, or the exposure which ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Stanislas' eyes deceived him, or whether he is right, he must have made a mistake. Dear Nais, do not let that dolt trifle with your life, your honor, your future; stop his mouth at once. You know my position here. I have need of all these people, but still I am entirely yours. Dispose of a life that belongs to you. You have rejected my prayers, but my heart ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... forced by that red-headed dolt," said the captain, "and I have had to explode my mine before I wished. However, there is no great harm done, and it will not ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... take me, who have trained your hand to the pistol, who have shown you how to draw the sword, have taught you not to dread the strongest laborer of the faubourg, who have done for your brains what I have done for your body, have set you above all men, and anointed you my king, do you take me for a dolt? Come, now, let us have ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... any man other That he glories more mighty the middle-garth over Should hold under heaven than he himself held: Art thou that Beowulf who won strife with Breca On the wide sea contending in swimming, When ye two for pride's sake search'd out the floods And for a dolt's cry into deep water Thrust both your life-days? No man the twain of you, 510 Lief or loth were he, might lay wyte to stay you Your sorrowful journey, when on the sea row'dye; Then when the ocean-stream ye with your arms deck'd, Meted the mere-streets, there your ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... been reading Walt Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or me he;— Or otherwise! Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara! O, chaos and everlasting bosh! I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a fool, an idiot! Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too, perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close. We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine canyons of the future! We live forever! The worms who criticise us (asses!) ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... as fast as e'r my Penne could trot, Powr'd out what first from quicke Inuention came; Nor neuer stood one word thereof to blot, Much like his Wit, that was to vse the same: But with my Verses he his Mistres wonne, Who doted on the Dolt beyond all measure. But soe, for you to Heau'n for Phraze I runne, And ransacke all APOLLO'S golden Treasure; Yet by my Troth, this Foole his Loue obtaines, And I lose you, for ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... dolt right," I replied, for I really cared but little. "But why have ye come to me, old man? I am but a lieutenant in the armory; I am not the captain of ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... put on the black. Her friend is also a veuve. How pleasantly they talk, of la guerre, of Paris, of the bad service; talk in agreeably modulated voices, leaning a little forward to each other, not wishing to disturb the dolt at my right. The train tears slowly on. Both the gendarmes are asleep, one with his hand automatically grasping the handle of the door. Lest I escape. I try all sorts of positions, for I find myself very tired. The best is to put my cane between my legs and rest my chin on it; ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... listening for the answer]. Speak louder, will you: I am a General I know that, you dolt. Have you captured the officer that was with her?... Damnation! You shall answer for this: you let him go: he bribed you. You must have seen him: the fellow is in the full dress court uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. I give you ...
— Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress • George Bernard Shaw
... sufficient judgment to show displeasure when she as good as told her excellent father that he was a dolt." ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... the Law, he burns the Book, he sends the Moolah back to school; Laughs at the beards of Saintly men; and dubs the Prophet dolt and fool, ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... of it: your lords use it; your knights are apes to the lords, and do so too ... be thou a beagle to them all.... [At] first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the players and onely follow you; the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, ... heele cry: 'hees such a gallant.' ... Secondly you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... quizzed me often and puzzled me long, You've asked me to cipher and spell, You've called me a dunce if I answered wrong, Or a dolt if I failed to tell Just when to say lie and when to say lay, Or what nine sevens may make, Or the longitude of Kamschatka Bay, Or the I-forget-what's-its-name Lake, So I think it's about my turn, I do, To ask a ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... very courteously to my strictures on his letter, and we maintained the controversy for some length of time. Having all the right on my side, I must have been a dolt not to make it apparent; and the friends of the Bishop must have felt that he gained nothing, else they would not have been so angry; but he was courteous ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... "Dolt!" said Louis. "Why else do I hide you in my tent? But remember I pay you back in your own coin afterwards! ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... and beauty, namely, Col. Malcome. He is really a splendid man, though I hardly relish the power he seems to exercise over father, who is so infatuated with him I believe he would scarcely be able to refuse any request he might choose to make. I wonder so talented a father should own a dolt like Rufus for a son. Silly-pated fellow! he has made love to me several times. I say made it, and truthfully; for no such simpleton as he could ever actually feel it in their bosoms. But then, no doubt, he thinks he is in love,—desperately so. I have no pity for ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... ass and dolt and fool of fools is he Who'll live in bondage to some talk-full she. Yet, if he'll wed, why i' the foul fiend's name, Must he in motley seek ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... he had, it is kind father for him, I stayd with him a week. At breakfast we had sometimes sowins, and sometimes stirrabout, and sometimes fraughauns and milk; but his cows would hardly give a drop of milk. For his head had lost the pachaun. His neighbour Squire Dolt is a meer buddaugh. I'd give a cow in Conaught you could see him. He keeps none but garrauns, and he rides on a soogaun with nothing for his bridle but gadd. In that, he is a meer spaulpeen, and a perfect Monaghan, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... which most men call Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.— This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bed doth bolt, Of purpose to deceive us; And leading us makes us to stray. Long winter's nights out of the way. And when we stick in mire and clay. He doth ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... all the blended emotions of his manhood. Humility, tenderness, reverence possessed him; self descended from its throne of egoism and yielded its scepter to another; the hot blood of the primitive, untamed Viking raced in his veins. Soul, mind, heart, body were all awakened. He was a dolt who confused genuine passion with the milder preferences ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Horace Endicott could know her crimes? All but the crime which he had named her blunder. Could this passionless stranger, this Irish politician, looking at her as indifferently as the judge on the bench, be Horace? No, surely no! Because that fool, dolt though he was, would never have seen this wretched confession of her crimes, and not slain her the next minute. Into this ambuscade had she been led by the crazy wife of Curran, whose sound advice she herself had thrown aside to follow ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... know whether I'm breathing yet," Tracy rejoined. She's a Goddess to me from this moment. Not like music? Am I a dolt? She would raise me from the dead, if she sang over me. Put me in a boat, and let her sing on, and all may end! I could die into colour, hearing her! That's the voice they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it ran. "I have made a startling discovery. The other fellow is Morrison. I have been a blind, stupid dolt, and am caught nicely. You can't call me any more names than I have already called myself. Morrison has been in it from the start. By an accident I learned he was behind the fellow who induced me to invest, and it is he who has been hammering the stock down ever since. They ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... to one he will drop in again when he comes back from his office, and arrest you wandering in Dreamland in the beautiful twilight. Delighted to find that you are neither reading nor writing,—the absurd dolt! as if a man weren't at work unless he be wielding a sledge-hammer!—he will preach out, and prose out, and twaddle out another hour of your golden eventide, "because he is your friend." You don't care whether he is judge or jury,—whether he talks sense or nonsense; you ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... superior education and breeding, and with no eye for the pure gold of as true and loyal a soul as ever offered itself in daily unmurmuring sacrifice for others, and without a thought of sacrifice. Fool and dolt! A self-sufficient prig! ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... Bobby Browne and went out upon the cool, starlit balcony. There he gently cursed himself for a fool, a dolt, an idiot. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a thing as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk—of space—to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... toleration was a notion which never occurred to either. These rivals from early days wrote with such bitterness against each other, that at length it produced mutual reproaches. Whitgift complains to Cartwright: "If you were writing against the veriest Papist, or the ignorantest dolt, you could not be more spiteful and malicious." And Cartwright replies: "If peace had been so precious unto you as you pretend, you would not have brought so many hard words and bitter reproaches, as it were sticks and coals, to double and treble ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... deny! If he were a dolt, a brute, a thing of wood as many are, he would have no right to vengeance; as it is, he is a gentleman, a hero, a martyr; may he not forget for one hour that he is a slave? Look you! I have seen him so tried that I told him—I, who love my army better ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... only to escape despair amid such wrath, but also for the strengthening of his faith in view of the raging retribution. For it was no easy matter to believe the whole human race was to perish. The world consequently judged Noah to be a dolt for believing such things, ridiculed him and, undoubtedly, made his ship an object of satire. In order to strengthen his mind amid such offenses, God speaks with him often, and now even reminds him of ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... sanctity (the which, that I may not anywise abate its repute, I will not name), wherein no great while agone, there being then no more than eight nuns and an abbess, all young, in the nunnery, a poor silly dolt of a fellow was gardener of a very goodly garden of theirs, who, being miscontent with his wage, settled his accounts with the ladies' bailiff and returned to Lamporecchio, whence he came. There, amongst others who welcomed ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... rascal and an honest man. I became enraged once before witnesses, against Sainte-Beuve, while begging him to have as much indulgence for Balzac as he had for Jules Lecomte. He answered me, calling me a dolt! That is where ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... remembered everything. Tarnowsy! The name struck my memory like a blow. What a stupid dolt I had been! The whole world had rung wedding bells for the marriage of the Count Maris Tarnowsy, scion of one of the greatest Hungarian houses, and Aline, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Gwendolen and Jasper Titus, of New ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... lose thy life; for in this city one cannot do aught of the kind, especially on a day like this and under so keen and masterful a chief of the police as ours of Baghdad.' 'Out on thee, O wretched old man!' cried I. 'Avaunt! what words are these thou givest me?' 'O dolt!' rejoined he, 'thou sayest to me what is not true and hidest thy mind from me; but I know that this is so and am certain of it, and I only seek to help thee this day.' I was fearful lest my people or the neighbours should hear the barber's talk, so kept silence, whilst he finished shaving ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... "Dolt that I am," I suddenly exclaimed, "to be fooling away my time when the nearest railway station or hotel is perhaps ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson |
