"Folly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ministers and their enemies, the remoteness of their position preventing them either from seeing or providing for its necessities. To suffer the overthrow of such an extensive empire, established by the blood of so many brave and virtuous men, showed no less folly in the princes themselves than infidelity in their ministers; for not one irruption alone, but many, contributed to its ruin; and these barbarians exhibited much ability and perseverance in ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Sir W. Pen, where he and his Lady and Pegg and pretty Mrs. Lowther her sister-in-law at supper, where I sat and talked, and Sir W. Pen, half drunk, did talk like a fool and vex his wife, that I was half pleased and half vexed to see so much folly and rudeness from him, and so late home ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Besides, you'd be only the great god Kelly to me this evening. Besides that I'm going to dinner with Querida, and afterward we're going to see the 'Joy of the Town' at the Folly Theatre." ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... spot in all those ancient hills, I succumbed to an execrable impulse to take her forcibly in my arms and kiss her! I don't know why I did it, or how, but that is just what happened. My shame, my horror over the transcendental folly was made almost unbearable by the way in which she took it. At first I thought she had swooned, she lay so limp and unresisting in my arms. My only excuse, whispered penitently in her ear, was that I couldn't help doing what I had done, and that I deserved to be drawn and ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... was out of view he gave a great shout and started to run. "What folly to bother with, a foolish, trouble-breeding thinking apparatus in a world like this!" he thought, as the tremendous currents of vitality surged through him. And he vaulted a six-rail fence and ran on. Down the hollow drenched with dew, across the brook which ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... London as they appeared superficially in the year 1600. His chief comedies, which satirize the shams of his age, are: Volpone, or the Fox, a merciless exposure of greed and avarice; The Alchemist, a study of quackery as it was practiced in Elizabethan days; Bartholomew Fair, a riot of folly; and Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, which would now be called a roaring farce. His chief tragedies are ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... end this folly," said the Baroness; "I have listened patiently to you; now, in your turn, listen to me. You will be sensible, will you not? You will leave me and go. You will go to Switzerland, and return to the Montanvert, where you met me for the first time, which I ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... idea in Drake's time that the people of Titusville, where he started work, regarded him as a lunatic and manifested a hostility to his enterprise that delayed operations for several months. Yet one day in August, 1859, the coveted liquid began flowing from "Drake's folly" at the rate ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... of the violin and the bow to boast of their achievements. And yet we men often commit this folly—the poet, the artist, the labourer in the domain of science, the general—we all do it. We are only the instruments which the Almighty uses: to Him alone be the honour! We have nothing of which ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... occurs the following: "A uniform system of classification of tumors is one of the great wants of modern pathology, and all attempts in this direction have proved failures." It would be folly, therefore, to burden the pages of a work of this kind with one or several of the proposed systems which have, admittedly, at some important point, failed of their purpose. Since the value of this chapter depends chiefly upon its practical ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... well said," nodded the old man; "you are speaking again like a man after my own heart. There is no folly but the loss of an opportunity to ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... produced an impression not to be eradicated. The wavering before his eyes, for a single instant, of the will-o'-the-wisp fire of sudden temptation had blinded him, so that he had been guilty of a cursed piece of folly, which had put him at once in the power of Irons. He knew enough of the latter to be pretty sure that he was capable of keeping his threat to enlighten Herman concerning his wife's visit to the studio, and ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... blurting out of confidences to a cabman was the one folly essential to a complete restoration of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the beginning of going anywhere near Newfoundland that winter, but the word was passed to me from old John Rose of Folly Cove that if I thought of running down for a load of herrin', then he'd ought to have a couple o' thousand barrels, by the looks o' things, fine and fat in pickle, against Christmas Day, and old John Rose being a great friend of mine, and the market ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... my boy," said his father sternly. "Recollect that you are a Mackhai. Let this legal robber take all; let him and his son enjoy their prize. Ken, my boy, my folly has made a beggar of you. I have lost all now, but one thing. I am still a gentleman of a good old race. He cannot ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... that it will come. Do you remember what Dr. Davis said last Sunday evening—that the sorrows God sent us brought comfort and strength with them, while the sorrows we brought on ourselves, through folly or wickedness, were by far the hardest to bear? But we mustn't talk of sorrow on an afternoon like this. It's meant for the sheer joy of living, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... prison of anxious thought that greed has builded, From the fetters that envy has wrought and pride has gilded, From the noise of the crowded ways and the fierce confusion, From the folly that wastes its days in a world of illusion, (Ah, but the life is lost that frets and languishes there!) I would escape and be free in the joy ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... worse, I perceived that Dennis was now so on edge, that to catch sight of the black pilot made him really hysterical, and the distracting thing was, that either because I was done up, or because such folly is far more contagious than any amount of wisdom, I began to get quite as bad, and Alister's disgust only made me worse. I unfeignedly dreaded the approach of that black hat and those triangular feet, for they made me giggle ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... material society, for none exists without it, and the greater the amount, distributed fairly and justly, the greater the power and strength of the society that holds it. We take human nature as it is—as God made it. We do not propose to remake it; that is the folly of reformers and theorists, and more especially moralists in and out of the church. The desire, the personal desire, to acquire property is a fundamental trait of character more or less strong in every individual. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... The shadow, whatever it was, had fallen since, and she felt it had some connection with the happenings of the evening. This unprecedented forbearance of his was a part of it. Of that she was sure. What did it portend? Was he angry? Or had Lucy Webster dropped some remark that had shown him the folly and uselessness of his resentment? Jane would have given a great deal to know just what had occurred on that walk in the rain. Perhaps Lucy had openly attacked Martin's codes and forced a quarrel. She was fearless enough to do so; or perhaps she had simply reproached ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... one time or other been pretty candid. William O'Brien said that the country would in the end 'own no flag but the Green Flag of an independent Irish nation,' and J.E. Redmond in March last said that it was the utmost folly to talk of finality in connection with the Home Rule Bill. Then you must remember what Parnell said about taking off his coat. He would not have done it for anything short of independence. Mr. Gladstone himself saw through this, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... fellow from the face of earth! I would the Moors had got him in Algiers What time he harried them on land and sea, And done their will with scimitar or cord Or flame of fagot, and so made an end; Or that some shot from petronel or bow Had winged him in the folly of his flight. Well had it been if the Inquisitors, With rack and screw, had laid black claw on him!" In days whose chronicle is writ in blood The richest ever flowed in English veins Some foul mischance in this sort might have been; For at dark ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... her to be more or less avoided. Mrs. Ochiltree was aware of this sentiment on the part of her acquaintance, and rather exulted in it. She hated fools. Only fools ran away from her, and that because they were afraid she would expose their folly. If most people were fools, it was no fault of hers, and she was not obliged to indulge them by pretending to believe that they knew anything. She had once owned considerable property, but was reticent about her affairs, and told no one how much ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... A folly that was partly the effect of too much reading of sensational novels, partly of physical ailment, for she ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... bazaar raises its head in a very imposing manner: it is composed of many varieties of architecture; but I think the order under which it must be classed is the preposterous. They call it Trollope's folly; and it is remarkable how a shrewd woman like Mrs Trollope should have committed such an error. A bazaar like an English bazaar is only to be supported in a city which has arrived at the acme of luxury; where ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... A Reply to a Nameles Answer against 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' Wherein the trivial Author of that Answer is discovver'd, the licenser conferr'd with, and the Opinion which they traduce defended. By the former author, J. M. Prov. xxvi. 5. Answer a Fool according to his folly, lest hee bee wise in his own conceit. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... these identical laws, and which, as a body, was fully under the control of the dominant class of the day— the Capitalist class. The oligarchy of wealth was triumphantly, gluttonously in power; it was ingenuous folly to expect it to yield where it could vanquish, and concede where it could despoil. [Footnote: Nor did it yield. Roosevelt's denunciations in no way affected the steady expropriating process. In the current seizure (1909) of vast coal ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... dead man first!" exclaimed Diccon. "This were folly, Master Roger. A lion's den were safer than ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... me so harshly." Thornly flushed. "I should hardly think myself worthy the name of man, if I followed any other course. To marry Katharine with this between us would be sheer folly. To refer to it must in itself bring about the result I expect. I have no desire to enter Katharine's world and she has no intention of adopting mine. She has always believed I would use my success as a step to mount to her. That her world ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... love the young man? Would it not be a longing for the top brick of the chimney, which she ought to know was out of her reach? So she had decided it, and had therefore already taught herself to regard the declaration made to her as the ebullition of a young man's folly. But not the less had she known how great had been the thing suggested to her,—how excellent was this top brick of the chimney; and as to the young man himself, she could not but feel that, had matters been different, she might have loved him. Now there had come a sudden change; but she did not ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in such a byke ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... events [which characterized 'The Maternity of Harriot Wicken'].... In the story we see so artistic a description of the play of character, the various phases of human goodness and badness are so well drawn out, that the book deserves high praise.... The description of the life of Folly Corner, and the men and women seen there, is not surpassed by any work of any contemporary novelist. The book is ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... discover that they really find a more delicious flavour in mutton than in venison, in flounder than in turbut, and yet prefer middling or bad venison to the best mutton; that is, what is scarcest and dearest, and consequently what is, from the folly of mankind, the most in vogue, to what is really the most agreeable to ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... outbursts never reach me and they never can; and they, therefore, utterly fail, and always will fail, of their aim; yet, my dear friend, there is nevertheless a serious side to such folly. For it shows the need of education, education, education. The religious editor and the preacher who took joy in his abuse of me have such a starved view of life that they cannot themselves, perhaps, ever be educated ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... his introduction to what is called society: "A refined and accomplished woman was a being altogether new to me, and of which I had formed a very inadequate idea." It requires but little knowledge of the world and its ways to see the folly of all such regrets. Great disparity of condition in marriage seldom answers. And in the case of a wayward, moody man, with the pride, the poverty, and the irregularities of Burns, and the drudging toil which must needs await ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... be used invidiously; and folly in the vocabulary of envy or baseness may signify courage and magnanimity. Hardihood and fool-hardiness are indeed as different as green and yellow, yet will appear the same to the jaundiced eye. Courage multiplies the chances ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ignorance leads to a condition of blissful happiness, it would be folly to seek a condition of ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... Mall, nothing could check the folly of the men. Like moths to a candle, so were they hastening to Kensington Gardens, only to be added to the heap of mashed that already ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... keep up your anger; recollect you are old enough to be her father, and that she likes you next in the whole world to William. Shake hands with them, and be friends; and if you ever had the folly to think of marrying her, keep your own secret, and nobody will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Tavia. Then, in the second book, "Dorothy Dale at Glenwood School," Tavia and the young ladies of that institution got into many a "scrape" and, while Dorothy was one of the girls, in the true sense of the word, she managed to discriminate between fun and folly. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at supper that night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a high opinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed a culminating folly. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects out of the islands, TICONDEROGA shall be suppressed, and we'll call the volume SOUTH SEA BALLADS. In health, spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do believe, refreshed capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise folly. Still we're not home, and (although the friend of a crowned head) are penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents used to call them) 'lovely but FATIL islands.' By the way, who wrote the LION OF THE NILE? My dear sir, that is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said the Sage, impatiently. "What childish questions you ask! The thing was a folly on the face of it; but, as I said before, he was a man—and the Cockatoo belonged to some ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... you're a fire-eater, I know, Richmond. We can't fight in this country; ain't allowed. And fighting 's infernal folly. By Jove! If you're going to tumble down every man who enjoys old Roy, you've your work cut out for you. He's long chalks the best joke out. 'Twixt you and me, he did return thanks. What does it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on her side, finding I could not be heard, I for a moment forgot my own situation, and involluntarily droped my gun, threw aside my shot pouch and was in the act of unbuttoning my coat, before I recollected the folly of the attempt I was about to make, which was to throw myself into the river and indevour to swim to the perogue; the perogue was three hundred yards distant the waves so high that a perogue could scarcely ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... spectacle of witless waste! So it struck me then, and for a time I could think of no other interpretation. This was Life! It came to me like a revelation, a revelation at once incredible and indisputable of the abysmal folly of our being. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... discussions in our own colleges and academies. Novels, poetry, essays, lectures, treatises on the natural sciences,—all deal with the great central questions of man's being, his origin, and his conduct. And surely it is folly to ignore these discussions in the market places of the world, because they are literature, and not couched in scholastic syllogisms. Dear me! I am philosophizing,—I, old Daddy Dan, with the children plucking at my coat-tails and the brown snuff staining my waistcoat, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... threatened. All six Indians were loth to depart until it was over, and the cacique would have kept us. But Luis and I did not know how long the bad weather might hold and we must get to the ships. It was Jerez who told them boastfully that gods did not fear storms,—specimen of that Spanish folly of ours that worked ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... that all mankind At first were formed for perfect bliss; Our forefather that boon resigned, All for an apple's sake, I wis; We fell condemned, for folly blind, To suffer sore in hell's abyss; But One a remedy did find Lest we our hope of heaven should miss. He suffered on the cross for this, Red blood ran from His crowned brow; He saved us by that pain of His, For the grace ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... William proclaimed Charles II King. And when, in 1652, a Parliamentary fleet sailed up the James to reduce the colony, he summoned the militia and prepared for a stubborn resistance. It was only when his Council pointed out the folly of defying the might of Britain that he reluctantly agreed to surrender. But his soul was filled with bitterness. So, with the restoration of Charles II to the throne, when once more he was governor of Virginia, he was determined to ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... formation of sane, health-promoting habits I can avoid having my usefulness diminished and my happiness impaired by the consequences of my own folly. ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... given him no encouragement;—and therefore he had been justified. No doubt he must have been mistaken; that he now perceived; but still he felt himself to be justified. It was impossible that he should explain all this to his father. One thing he certainly could not say,—just at present. After his folly in regard to those heavy debts he could not at once risk his father's renewed anger by proposing to him an American daughter-in-law. That must stand over, at any rate till the girl had accepted him positively. "I am afraid it won't come off, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... one of Dante's received synonymes; of his strong political opinions, and the importance he attached to them, there can be no doubt. And he meant his poem to be the vehicle of them, and the record to all ages of the folly and selfishness with which he saw men governed. That he should take the deepest interest in the goings-on of his time is part of his greatness; to suppose that he stopped at them, or that he subordinated to political objects or feelings all the other elements of his poem, is to shrink ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... with no uniformity of organization, issues, or security. Thus is it that the States have usurped the power to regulate commerce and currency, and to emit bills of credit, in defiance of the prohibition of the Federal Constitution. The Egyptians abandoned their folly after seven plagues; but we have had eight bank convulsions, and yet we adhere to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... horse to a similar pace, only maintaining a fast steady gallop that kept the other in sight though the space between again widened. Apparently Sorenson realized the folly of attempting to outrun, his pursuer at once, for he soon dropped back into a regular, mile-eating gallop. Gradually in turn Weir crept up ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... minute, every object appeared green to his eyes, and between the exertions of reaching he lay in a state approaching to syncope. The strongest cordials, volatiles, and repeated blisters barely supported him. At length, however, he did begin to emerge out of the extreme danger into which his folly had plunged him; and by generous living and tonics, in about two months he came to enjoy a ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... heard how Marsyas, In the folly of his pride, Boasted of a matchless skill,— When the great god's back ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... him, also, that he was standing on a loose stone which might wabble when he pulled his gun, and he cursed himself silently for his hasty folly. Pierre, doubtless, had noticed that stone, and therefore he had made the suggestion that they stand where they were. Otherwise, how could there be that singular calm in the steady eyes which looked across ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... but this is an affair for the most puissant Company—the lives of their servants are not to be sacrificed to the folly of a sea-captain. I have nearly been ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... this occasion I improved, Whereby certain gents of affluence I hear were greatly moved; But not all of Johnson's folly, although multiplied by nine, Could compare with Milton Perkins, late an ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... from time to time floating across the hills. The fact of the matter was that the poor girl was the victim of a presentiment that something was going to happen to John. Most people of imaginative mind have suffered from this kind of thing at one time or other in their lives, and have lived to see the folly of it; and there was more in the circumstances of the present case to excuse indulgence in the luxury of presentiments than as usual. Indeed, as it happened, she was not far out—only a sixteenth of an inch or so—for ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... had known her own origin she had tried to get rid of this prejudice more earnestly than before, but the habit was so strong that she had not yet quite mastered it. She sat and watched the shadowy outline of the Indian boy's figure in the boat, and lectured herself a little on the folly and even ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... mind is not confined to the religious part of our being. It goes on perpetually in our intellectual no less than our moral nature. Our success in using whatever we learn in every department, the wisdom or the folly of everything we do, whether relating to intellectual, to religious, or to practical life, depends on the faithfulness with which we apply these three powers to whatever is ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... my second folly, far worse than the first, as I left but two sound men to guard the house; but, like the first, it was a help ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said he, "let me act. It is very dangerous to continue uncertainty in the government, and it would be folly and crime not to use this occasion. Since this priest says that the temple is not defended, let me go to it with a handful of men whom ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... boys, and all the females, of whom Sacajawea was one: she does not, however, show any distress at these recollections, nor any joy at the prospect of being restored to her country; for she seems to possess the folly or the philosophy of not suffering her feelings to extend beyond the anxiety of having plenty to eat and a few trinkets ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... give me an opportunity of talking to the King. It was not that she was jealous lest he should be fond of me, but she feared that, in speaking according to my usual custom, freely and without restraint, I should open the King's eyes and point out to him the folly of the life he was leading. I had, however, no ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... latitude. She does not coddle and over-indulge her children, but rewards their love abundantly, invigorates them if they dwell in her presence, and develops mind and muscle, heart and soul, if they obey her laws and seek to know her well. Although infinitely rich, she has not the short-sighted folly of those parents who seek to place everything in the hand of a child without cost. On the contrary, she says, "See what you may win, what you may attain." Every crop is a prize to knowledge, skill, industry. Every flower is a beautiful ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... very considerable expense to which he had been put in connection with the divorce proceedings? Was all that money to be wasted? Mr. Tapster suddenly saw the whole of his little world rising up in judgment, smiling pityingly at his folly and weakness. During the whole of a long and of what had been, till this last year, a very prosperous life, Mr. Tapster had always steered his safe course by what may be called the compass of public opinion, and now, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... in your folly ample riches for yourself, and refuse a crumb of bread to the poor man; lo! the day is at hand when burning in cruel flames, you shall beg for a ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... the epoch when they would have obtained it by their own force and maturity? Or at least may they not place themselves under the government of more just and considerate rulers? How would this country repent her folly, if she should thus become the instrument of her own abasement; if she should herself be the cause of establishing a power already the most formidable rival of her commercial and maritime ascendency, in the very heart of her most ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Nicholls to himself, and Mark stared at him. "Now listen," he said. "There is a young man who has a vocation to the priesthood, and he comes under obedience to work in London. That is, to live in the thick of sin, of suffering, of folly and madness. If it were acknowledged that the place was full of cholera or smallpox it would be simple enough. But the place is thick with disguises. The worst cases don't seem in the least ill; the stench of the plague is ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... do those frogs of the Stoics croak at me and say that nothing is more miserable than madness. But folly is the next degree, if not the very thing. For what else is madness than for a man to be out of his wits? But to let them see how they are clean out of the way, with the Muses' good favor we'll take this syllogism in pieces. Subtly ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... red, and it was with difficulty he kept back the tears of shame and bitterness, as he realized the consequences of his folly. But Will Hen Baizley was there, so he held himself manfully erect, and glared defiantly at the tough who was grinning over the fence. Mr. Hand pushed past and was about to open the gate, when ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... said he. "And are you in the family feud too? If that is so you'll hear little of Miss Nan's songs, I'm thinking, and that is the folly of feuds. If I was you I would say nothing about the Jean, and the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... for blood, it was likely that such cool precautions were taken to save a relic when lives were at stake, is a question which seems easily answered; but there is such a charm about the belief, that, perhaps, 'tis folly to be wise on ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... sweetmeat struck me in the face. Another and another followed, covering me with flour and comfits. This was the last straw. For a moment, forgetting where I was, I turned upon them, red and furious, every hair in my moustachios bristling. The next, the full sense of my impotence and of the folly of resentment prevailed with me, and, dropping my head upon my breast, I rushed from ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... more than abdication that she felt in Jack; it was a deep hostility, it was the steady burning of that flame that she had seen in his eye that morning when she had told her mother that she was cruel and shallow and selfish. This was an enemy who walked beside her and, after perplexity, after the folly of soft imaginings, the folly of having allowed her heart to yearn over him a little, and, perhaps, over herself, indignation rushed upon her, and humiliation, and then ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... is but the experience of other Sections of the Country similarly situated. The question is therefore forced upon us, 'How long is this War to continue; and, if continued, as it has been, on our soil, aided by the Treason and folly of our own citizens, acting in concert with the Confederates, how long can Slavery, or, if you please, any other property-interest, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... did the poor cat, in her cold and hunger, think of the nice bright fire on her old mistress's hearth, and her brown bread and milk, till she was ready to cry her eyes out with vexation at her own folly—and what was still worse, her own ingratitude—in being willing to leave the good old woman, her best friend, who had taken care of her all her life long, merely because she fancied it would be very grand to live in a palace. People sometimes find out their mistakes when it ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... Caius Verres could hardly have been outdone by the worst of Persian satraps; but there was a difference. A moral sense and political sense had been awakened which could see both the wickedness and the folly of such conduct. The voice of a Cicero sounded with trumpet tones against the oppressor, who was brought to trial and exiled for deeds which under the Oriental system, from the days of Artaxerxes to those of the Grand Turk, would scarcely have called forth a reproving ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... of a million things in the thousandth part of a second—of the flaming canvas, the deadly crush, the wild beasts, terrified and breaking from their cages. It was folly, it was madness, to linger a moment in hopes of the fire being subdued. I looked toward the entrance—it was not far from us; a few people were going quickly out. I was stronger than her brother; I could fight ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... in his Memoirs of the Reign of Charles VIII. (tom. ii. p, 69), draws a striking picture of the impression made upon his mind by the good government of the state of Venice. This may be compared with what he says of the folly of Siena. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... in these things, I examined more closely into their past medical history, and saw more clearly the present folly of a certain part of our medicinal practice. How we are struggling with alcohol, especially as found in so many of our patent medicines, and how helpless we are in trying to abolish the sale of these medicines by reason of our unbounded liberty! In our world, a man may concoct any alcoholic medicine ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... and the natural becomes supernatural, the world regains its splendour and charm. Lines may be drawn from their predecessors to Coleridge and the Wordsworths, but the work they did was distinctly original, and renewed proof was given of the folly of despair even when fertility seems to be exhausted. There is always a hidden conduit open into an unknown region whence at any moment streams may rush and renew the ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... houses of Covent Garden Market, "well known to all gentlemen to whom beds are unknown"; the TURK'S HEAD, 'Change Alley, which also had its tokens; the TURK'S HEAD, in the Strand, which was a favorite supping house for Dr. Johnson and Boswell; the FOLLY, a coffee house on a house-boat on the Thames, which became quite notorious during ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... effected, but that at the same time these are accompanied or followed by many acts of injustice and crime. [21] Frustra niti, 'to strive in vain (namely, to effect improvements), if, after all, nothing but hatred is incurred by it, is extreme folly.' [22] Nisi forte, 'unless perhaps'—which surely cannot be the case with any sensible man. Respecting this use of nisi forte, expressing an improbable supposition, see Zumpt, S 526. [23] Libido—gratificari, 'the inclination to gratify;' for libido tenet is only a paraphrase ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... one who had been "a leading person" in the Barebones Parliament (Harrison or Squib?); and in Speech XIII. (April 21) he had dwelt on the fact again more at large, revealing a story, as he said, of his "own weakness and folly." The Barebones Parliament had been one of his own choosing; he had filled it with "men of our own judgment, who had fought in the wars, and were all of a piece upon that account." This he had done in his "simplicity," expecting ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... human history. It is folly to believe that any religions, any social orders, any scientific hypotheses, are more than provisional, and partially possessed of truth. Let us assume that the whole curve of human existence on this planet describes a parabola of some twenty millions of years ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Good also was the answer of Diogenes, who, when Philip was marching to fight against the Greeks, stole into his camp, and was arrested and brought before him, and the king not recognizing him asked if he was a spy, "Certainly," replied he, "Philip, I have come to spy out your inconsiderate folly, which makes you, under no compulsion, come here and hazard your kingdom and life on a moment's[467] cast of the die." This was perhaps rather too strong ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the spirits to partake, the liver of the animal is removed, and is carefully examined (cf. p. 307). If the omens are now favorable, the work may be resumed, but should they still be unpropitious, it is folly to proceed, for ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... place, or at least to cut the throats of all within it," said the man Nicholas to his guard Ali as they followed with the rest. "If I know aught of these brethren, cross and sword will soon be hard upon our track, and men's lives must pay the price of such soft folly." And he shivered as though ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... worthy of them. They are to men what beauty is to women, a dangerous gift, which has a natural tendency to make them indolent, silly, and worthless. Let property be hereditary, but let titular honours be the reward of noble or useful exertions. France, in her folly, has destroyed them totally, instead of making them conditional.” Howbeit, titled people appear to have been highly honoured by her, notwithstanding these observations. By 1797 she had lost her long-existing confidence ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... Where Caesars, heroes, peasants, hermits lie, Blended in dust together; where the slave Rests from his labors; where th' insulting proud Resigns his power; the miser drops his hoard; Where human folly sleeps. 331 DYER: Ruins of ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... beautiful a place, full of the sweetest harmonies of nature, and filling the human heart with a grateful sense of God's love, has, by the sordid wickedness of man, been perverted into a paradise of the Prince of Darkness, who, knowing too well the weakness and folly of poor erring humanity, lures by every artificial attraction and fascination even the poor pilgrim invalid, who hopefully journeys here to breathe the pure fresh air and to recover health; and also does ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... say, 'I shall be well.' Does not the Bible say that faith shall make ye whole? Cling to your faith! Believe! Believe! Else will you feel as if the world crumbled beneath your feet! And there is nothing, nothing to take its place. What folly, what presumption, to suggest that anything can—a mortal passion—" She stopped suddenly, and continued coldly, "Go, my friends; words do not come easily to me to-day. Go, and God grant that you may be well ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and is the worse for it. I love to let him step deeper into the mire,'—[luring him on with his own confessions, and with my assumptions of his case] 'and so deep that if it be possible, they may at least discern their error. FOLLY AND ABSURDITY ARE NOT TO BE CURED BY BARE ADMONITION. What Cyrus answered him who importuned him to harangue his army upon the point of battle, "that men do not become valiant and warlike on a sudden, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... an obstacle in his path. It was Lincoln. Of course, it was folly to propose a scheme which the incoming President would not sustain. Lincoln and Seward must come to an understanding. To bring that about Seward despatched a personal legate to Springfield. Thurlow Weed, editor, man of the world, political wire-puller beyond compare, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... if there were to be two kingdoms, there must also be two religions: at least, the citizens of one kingdom should not get their religion from the worship and service held in another kingdom. On the face of it this looked like the very essence of wisdom. It was worldly wisdom, but it was religious folly because it was ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... reasonable soul, entirely confident of my care, and so, putting her head on my arm, she went away to dreamland. At such times my literary ambitions and failures were of no account. [To wish myself back there with that tiny form beside me is folly—but ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... a thickly-wooded region bordering the banks of the river, we emerged on an open country, the celebrated llanos of Venezuela, which extended far away beyond human ken. As the best part of the day was spent, we agreed that it would be folly to attempt pushing forward without a guide; so, as a hato, or cattle-farm, was seen in the distance, we resolved to ride towards it for the purpose of ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... he advised him not to take office if he were foolish, nor to grow rich if he were illiberal, nor to marry if likely to be ruled by his wife. For success beyond their merit is to foolish persons a cause of folly, as Demosthenes said,[957] and good fortune beyond their merit is to those who are not sensible a cause ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Ziemianitch had hanged himself to help me on to further crime. The strength of falsehood seemed irresistible. These people stood doomed by the folly and the illusion that was in them—they being themselves the slaves of lies. Natalia Victorovna, I embraced the might of falsehood, I exulted in it—I gave myself up to it for a time. Who could have resisted! You yourself were the prize of it. I sat alone ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... fault. Him 'n' Polly was so dead set on bein' fashionable 'n' bein' a contrast to Hiram an Lucy, 'n' I hope to-night as they lay there all puffed up as they 'll reflect on their folly 'n' think a little on how the rest of us as did n't care rhyme or reason for folly is got no choice but to puff up, too. Mrs. Jilkins is awful mad; she says Mr. Jilkins wanted to wear his straw hat anyhow, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... a young fellow gives his word to perform a cursed piece of folly, he always sticks to it, my dear sir, begging your pardon. But Lord, Lord, what am I speaking of? I am aspeaking of twenty year ago. I was well-to-do then, but I may say Heaven has blessed my store, and I am three times as well off now. Ask my ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believed that she could plant a seed of liberalism in the blank wall of mediocrity? How had she fallen into the folly of trying to plant anything whatever in a wall so smooth and sun-glazed, and so satisfying to ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... necessary that severe justice should take its course amongst the most conspicuous leaders or agents in the insurrection. Martial law still prevailed; and under that law we know, through a speech of the Duke of Wellington's, how entirely the very elements of justice are dependent upon individual folly or caprice. Many of those who had shown the greatest generosity, and with no slight risk to themselves, were now selected to suffer. Bagenal Harvey, a Protestant gentleman, who had held the supreme command of the rebel army for some ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... thought I saw, in a few obnoxious words, a hard case of repetition directed against me. I wished both magazine and review at the bottom of the sea. I shall be ashamed to see you, and my sister (though innocent) will be still more so; for the folly was done without her knowledge, and has made her uneasy ever since. My guardian angel was absent ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... his folly; while, although they met on more than one occasion, and John Grimbal repeated his offer of regular work, the bee-keeper refused that proposal, also. He made some small sums out of the Red House hives, but would not undertake any ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... remind me of my folly," rejoined Gay, a little piqued. "We can't always be wise. Thou thyself—but let that pass, the future is the foundation of hope. Before long I shall be in funds. The 'Fables' will be in the booksellers' hands ere the month ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... do not expect the modern theatre to be a place of instruction (that business is now turned over to the telegraphic operator, who is making a new language), but it may give amusement instead of torture, and do a little in satirizing folly and kindling love of home ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... more with his own thoughts, forgot that he had asked the question. He had often revolved the matter in his own mind, but had never before ventured to speak of it. His mother's conversation with him, after his injury by the gun, had shown him the folly of his plan of leaving home clandestinely; but dissatisfaction with his lot grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength. It was a great mystery to him how his mother could consent to live so, for so many years. He would look at the black and crazy loggery, with its clay ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... "If I come to your Way will you give me a new seeley and good curry every day?" And back again we went to the very beginning of things, while the old grandfather spinning his wheel chuckled at us for our folly in wasting our time over potters. "As if we would ever turn to your religion!" he said. "Have you ever heard of a potter ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... quite terrible the amount of things I have told everybody." There is a distinct flash in her lovely eyes now, and her small hand has tightened round her fan. "Sometimes—I talk folly! As a fact" (with a touch of defiance), "I like Sir Hastings, although he is my guardian's brother!—my guardian who would so gladly get rid of me." There is bitterness on the ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... should not, in all likelihood, have given a second glance at my neighbors on the steps of the theater. But I cannot forget that I did see both her and you— indeed, Miss Forbes herself recalled the incident— and the close questioning of the Scotland Yard men who were here last night showed me the folly of imagining that I could deny all knowledge of you. I recognize now that some impish contriving of circumstances forced this knowledge upon me. The sudden downpour of rain, and the fact that I was delayed by a slight accident to my cab, conspired with the apparently ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... favourable a light as possible, and thought for a moment of trying to persuade Miss Joliffe that there was no need for her to see Lord Blandamer at all, unless he summoned her. But she was of a philosophic temperament, and in a moment had rebuked her own folly. What could any impression of Lord Blandamer's matter to her? she would probably never see him again unless she opened the door when he went out. Why should he think anything at all about a commonplace ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Day of Pentecost with a sigh, as though there were more of the Holy Spirit on that day than to-day; and as though there were a larger Presence of God in the upper room than in the room in which you sit, is a distinct mistake and folly. We may not have the sound as of a rushing mighty wind, nor the crowns of fire; there is no miracle to startle and arrest: but the Holy Spirit is with the Church in all the old gracious and copious plenitude; the river is sweeping past in undiminished ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... be folly to suggest, however, that, conscious though Mr. Chesterton is of the crimes of history, he has turned history into a mere series of floggings of criminals. He is for ever laying down the whip and inviting the criminals to take their seats while he paints gorgeous portraits of them in all ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... calculated to render me better, wiser, or happier than before; or who, as far as I could see, could be greatly benefited by mine. My only companions had been unamiable children, and ignorant, wrong- headed girls; from whose fatiguing folly, unbroken solitude was often a relief most earnestly desired and dearly prized. But to be restricted to such associates was a serious evil, both in its immediate effects and the consequences that were likely ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... exclaimed; "what carelessness! what folly! I should have thought they would have been afraid to leave so vast an ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... carried them thorow them all, showing that their was on mad for love, their another wt to much study, a third besottedly fool wt drunkness, a 4th Hypocondriack, and so wt all the rest marvelous pertinently. At last as they ware going out he sayd: Gentlemen, I beleife ye wondred at the folly of many ye have sein; but theirs a fool (pointing at him) whom ye'el admire more then them all, that poor fellow beleifes him selfe to be the beloved Aposle St. John, but to let you sie that he is not St. John, and whow false ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... any thing could arrest the folly of innovators and dabbling reformers, it would be the history of former attempts to effect improvements similar to theirs. With this sort of history every one would do well to acquaint himself, before he proceeds to disfigure words by placing ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... serious struggle on the northern Tuscan frontier, lay beyond the horizon of the Roman policy at that time. No course was therefore left but to refrain from all interference. Foolishly, however, while declining to send auxiliary troops, they despatched envoys. With still greater folly these sought to impose upon the Celts by haughty language, and, when this failed, they conceived that they might with impunity violate the law of nations in dealing with barbarians; in the ranks of the Clusines they ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... disdaine in youth, desire in age, and then are they hated in the winter, that might have been loved in the prime. A wrinkled maid is like a parched rose, that is cast up in coffers to please the smell, not worn in the hand to content the eye. There is no folly in love to had-I-wist, and therefore, be rulde by me. Love while thou art young, least thou be disdained when thou art olde. Beautie nor time cannot bee recalde, and if thou love, like of Montanus; ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... considered the height of folly for a man to allow his valuable animals to starve to death because of the expense of feeding them, but few people recognize the fact, which is also true, that it is equally bad business policy to allow the valuable ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... at the goal or the wicket, and not in the seats around? Not in the Saturday Squallers—men of a higher grade— That lay down a law they know not, of a game that they have not played? Holding the folly of flannel, still will ye teach the Schools That Wisdom is dressed in shoddy, and how should the Wise be fools? Not doubting but ye are The People—ye are the Sons of The Blood? Loafers and talkers and writers,—Read ye the Verses ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... enemy's skirmishers were advancing on our front and right flank and his cannon sweeping the position from our left. We were not long in suspense. Almost simultaneously we were raked by missiles from three directions. To have offered resistance would have been sheer folly. In fifteen minutes the few survivors of Pickett's immortal division had been run over and captured, together with the brigades which were posted on ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... The man suspected nothing. But Thorpe had to confess himself fearfully uneasy about his own financial arrangements. That was the rub. Wallace Carpenter had been sincere enough in his informal striking of partnership, but had he retained his enthusiasm? Had second thought convicted him of folly? Had conservative business friends dissuaded him? Had the glow faded in the reality of his accustomed life? And even if his good-will remained unimpaired, would he be able, at such short notice, to raise so large a sum? Would he realize ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... children of Pandu. My own sons were prone to wilfulness and despised me because I am old. Blind as I am, because of my miserable plight and through paternal affection, I bore it all. I was foolish after the thoughtless Duryodhana ever growing in folly. Having been a spectator of the riches of the mighty sons of Pandu, my son was derided for his awkwardness while ascending the hall. Unable to bear it all and unable himself to overcome the sons of Pandu in the field, and though a soldier, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... yet even while she bandaged me at my bidding, I did not arrive at understanding the folly—the cruel folly of that speech. Nay, even when, having bandaged me, she stepped away and left me, I considered not nor surmised what second meaning might be read ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... uncle when he brooded over his wrongs, and soliloquised thus:—"You ought to have known that I was a fool, that I could not be expected to know the fact, or to guide myself aright in opposition to and despite of my own folly, and you ought to have forced me to study when I declined to be led—bah! it's too late to say all this now. Come, if there is any manhood in me worthy of the name, let me set to work at once and make the most of ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... all who bore one name. Still nobody suspected the true culprits, search was fruitless, inquiries led nowhere: the marquise put on mourning for her brothers, Sainte-Croix continued in his path of folly, and all things went on as before. Meanwhile Sainte-Croix had made the acquaintance of the Sieur de Saint Laurent, the same man from whom Penautier had asked for a post without success, and had made friends with him. Penautier had meanwhile become the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... It is a humiliating confession, is it not, that one has wilfully thrown away something that perhaps one might have had, for something that one knows one can never have? It is sheerest folly. And to do it with one's eyes open is the maddest folly of all. Gerald Vernor is as indifferent to me as it is possible for one human creature to be to another. I hold no more place in her thoughts than had I never existed. And yet, Soeur Angelique, I am fool enough,—or helpless ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... had not been here more than a month when the instances of my master at length prevailed, and I too was Enlarged; only some Fifty Florins being laid upon me by way of fine. This mulct was paid perforce by Mr. Pinchin; for as 'twas through his mad folly, and no fault of my own, that I had come to Sorrow, he was in all Justice and Equity bound to bear me harmless in the Consequences. He was fain, however, to make some Demur, and to Complain, in his usual piteous manner, of being ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... semblance, and stood staring upon her. He went a little apart, and said within himself, "Can this be my sweet friend, my hope, my heart, my life, the fair lady who gave me the grace of her love? From whence comes she; who might have brought her to this far land? But I speak in my folly, for well I know that this is not my dear. A little red, a little white, and all women are thus shapen. My thoughts are troubled, by reason that the sweetness of this lady resembles the sweetness of that other, for whom my heart sighs and trembles. Yet needs ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... chasms in front of him, or that there was ice on the trail ahead, he would not believe them, but put his fingers in his ears so that he could not hear, and thus became deaf and blind to his own interests. The people pestered him so much about his folly, and he learned to hate them so much for their interference in his personal matters, that he crossed the names of all his friends from his list of social possibilities, would recognize none of them, and refused to speak even when addressed; he thus became a blind, deaf and dumb mute. The ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... stepping forward. He had no children of his own: and when he spoke to children (which was not often) his tone conveyed that he thought very little of them. He used that tone now: which was sheer blundering folly: ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... experienced by him from men of his own class, pressed sorely upon the heart of the sensitive man of talent and refinement; he found very few who could appreciate or understand his mental superiority, which was pronounced as folly and madness by the ignorant persons about him. A new country, where all are rushing eagerly forward in order to secure the common necessaries of life, is not a favourable soil in which to nourish the bright fancies and delusive dreams of the poet. ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... boons each faithful friend. Let thine enthronement, lord, this day Make all thy lovers glad and gay, And let all those who hate thee flee To the ten winds for fear of thee. Dear lord, my mother's words of hate With thy sweet virtues expiate, And from the stain of folly clear The father whom we both revere. Brother, to me compassion show, I pray thee with my head bent low, And to these friends who on thee call,— As the Great Father pities all. But if my tears ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... called to the colours by the tens or the hundreds of thousands, unskilled and untrained, to be shot down, decimated by the thoroughly trained and skilled troops of another nation, or a combination of other nations, is indeed the crime. Never, moreover, was folly so great as that shown by him or by her who will not see. And to look at the matter without prejudice, we will realise that this is merely policing what we have. It is meeting force with adequate force, if it becomes necessary, so ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... was shortly after this understanding that Pete sat in the patio back of the saloon—waiting impatiently for Malvey to show up, and half-inclined to go out and look for him. But experience had taught Pete the folly of hot-headed haste, so, like The Spider, he withdrew into himself, apparently indifferent to the loud talk of the men in the saloon, the raw jokes and the truculent swaggering, with the implication, voiced loudly by one half-drunken renegade, that the stranger was a short-horn ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... of February, 1533, according to our computation, the year beginning on January 1. It is but a fortnight since I was thirty-nine years old. I want at least as much more of life. If in the meantime I should trouble my thoughts with a matter so far from me as death, it were but folly. Of those renowned in life I will lay a wager I will find more that have died before they came ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... would not have hurt any one for the world, would we, sonny?' And the boy got up and soothed her as a man might have done, and he was only a little creature. I think I loved him from the moment I saw him shielding that poor, dying mother from her own folly. 'Course, mummy, course!' he repeated over and again. Then he looked at me with the eyes of my own dead baby. Both children were startlingly like the father. The look pleaded for mercy from me to them—John, the mother, and the little fellow himself. And I, who ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... fact that because a man is immoral that it is no reason why he should become syphilitic. We all want to abolish sin, but failing that we must cease wanting to poison the sinner. We must actively work to save him from the penalties of his folly, for that is the only way in which we can save his victims and succeed ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... not resist," said Tell scornfully. "I should have known the folly of trusting to a tyrant to keep his word. My death will at least show my countrymen the worth of their ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... one. You're a better man than he is. You have a good situation and he's just a waster; couldn't buy his own cigarettes if he had to work for the money, say nothing of his gloves and ties. Born to riches, born to folly, say I. Still, Julia will fuss just about ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... drive in hot haste, bearing a letter. He rides too hard. He has never carried himself easily in this climate. He treats it as if it was Ireland. He will not protect himself, and, if penalty followed folly, should now be in his grave. I like you, Michael. You ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in his regard of his present folly and of his love in his youthful time. Now he could be mad with method, knowing it to be madness: then he was compelled to make believe his madness wisdom. In those days any flash of reason upon his loved one's imperfections was blurred over hastily and with fear. Such penetrative ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... the name of the street he wanted to find, and, moreover, a curious shrinking kept him from inquiring. In the morning he would find it, but he did not want to make demands upon the usual sources for help until he had exhausted all other means of redeeming his folly in not learning Carmencita's full name and address before he left her. Was a man's whole life to be changed, to be made or unmade, by whimsical chance or by stupid blunder? In the gray dawn of a new day he reached his home and went to bed for ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... desperate flirtation arose between Anne and little Gaston, who was but nine years of age. Gaston, whom the folly of the times entitled Duke of Anjou, hated Louis, and delighted to excite his jealousy and anger by his open and secret manifestation of love for the beautiful Anne. The king's health failed. He became increasingly languid, morose, emaciate. Anne, young ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... for urging the abandonment of the Dardanelles campaign was the urgent need for troops elsewhere. It was declared that it was absurd folly to be wasting troops at Gallipoli when the western front was being starved for men. Furthermore there were rapidly accumulating evidences that the Entente Powers were soon to be compelled to fight on a new ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... be no true charm but it hath a touch of folly in it, this one must be most potent. Now a wise man would not think there's that virtue in a bit of grease, a jingling rhyme, and a hair cut, that one might thereby win a woman's love—but the wise are fools in love. I have here the lard ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... wrath and much bitterness. She had forgiven coldness, neglect, and aspersion of herself, but she could not forgive brutality and violence toward the weak and helpless. She saw the futility of hope of aid from the Nation that had deserted its allies. She felt, on the other hand, the folly of expecting any change in a people steeped in intolerance and gloating in the triumph of lawless violence over obnoxious law. She thought she saw that there was but little hope for that people for whom she had toiled so faithfully to grow to the full ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... inclosure came safe to hand. Wise men, they say, may always learn something even from a fool. By the time I had got through Sharpin's maundering report of his own folly, I saw my way clear enough to the end of the Rutherford Street case, just as you thought I should. In half an hour's time I was at the house. The first person I saw there ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... with the agitated vehemence of one who, under a great shock, was saying more than she would have betrayed in a cooler and more guarded mood, "What could possess him? For years he had followed me about like a little dog, and never said more than I let him; and now what folly was in his head, just because I could not walk as far as the ruin with the others. When I said I was going to Scotland, what business had he to—Oh! the others will be coming back, Rachel, could we not go ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a Jilla-Jilly wind, it's almost as bad," thought our hero. If he had known more about the ocean and its terrors he would have been more frightened than he was. If it was not exactly an instance of "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," it was, in Bob's case, the next thing ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... to be done, I saw that it must be done quickly. Jack's blood was up. He had declared that he would win her, and had departed with this declaration. I knew him well enough to feel sure that his action would be prompt. He was capable of any act of folly or of desperation. If I could hope to contend successfully against him, it would be necessary for me to be as foolish and as desperate. I must go in for a headlong game. It was to be a regular steeple-chase. No dilly-dallying—no shuffling—no ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... the Ministry, at this time, (October, 1768,) by Bernard, Hutchinson, and Gage, were similar in tone. There was very little government in Boston, according to Gage; there was nothing able to resist a mob, according to Hutchinson; so much wickedness and folly were never before combined as in the men who lately ruled here, according to Bernard. The Commander-in-Chief and the Governor sent despatches to Lord Hillsborough on the same day (October 31, 1768). Gage informed the Secretary that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... sad story!" cried Lady Mary; "and all those men were killed through one poor little fawn! Still, nurse, it was not the fawn's fault; it was the result of their own impatience and folly. Did you ever ...
— In The Forest • Catharine Parr Traill
... just mentioned, but also because he can suit the size of the opening to the requirements of each slide. Slides can be works of art just as much as prints; so that masking a slide becomes just as important as trimming a print, and equally worthy of individual treatment. It is folly to give each slide a mask opening ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics |
