"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the vicar, with more than common solemnity—'criminal, I should say—criminal! Not only is it making a fool of the boy, but it is despising the gifts of Providence, and teaching him to ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... much,' he answered, 'whether it was kindness or curiosity that led him out of the road. But he that follows a fool hath much need of wisdom, for if he save the fool do ye not see that he hath ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... of Certain Transactions in the Life of Lazzaro Biancomonte, of Biancomonte, sometime Fool of ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... bumblebee is entrapped within the petal bower and fails to find the proper exit, or it may be—much less a fool—having run the gantlet once too often, decides to escape the ordeal; hence the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... said: "The picture is already boxed and in its lead coffin. No doubt by now it is on its way to Liverpool. I am sorry." But his thoughts, as Philip easily read them, were: "Fancy my letting this vulgar fool into the Tate Street workshop! Even HE would know that old masters are not found in a half-finished state on Chelsea-made frames and canvases. Fancy my letting him see those two half-completed Van Dycks, the new Hals, the half-dozen Corots. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... 'Old fool!' said Fenwick. 'Yes, I remember. He wouldn't ask anybody to paint his children who'd written such a violent article. As if I wanted to paint his children! Besides, it was a mere excuse—to save ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... aspired to rank among the earls of England. But the successors of Mr Pitt were strong; they thought the Fitz-Warenes had already been too rapidly advanced; it was whispered that the king did not like the new man; that his majesty thought him pompous, full of pretence, in short, a fool. But though the successors of Mr Pitt managed to govern the country for twenty years and were generally very strong, in such an interval of time however good their management or great their luck, there were inevitably occasions when they found themselves in difficulties, when it was necessary ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... did startle me!" cried Dan in a hoarse whisper. "But I'm awfully glad you've come." Dan's face was perfectly white, and he was trembling visibly. "Kitty, what can I do? I have been such a—such a fool; worse than a fool. Look!" holding up a paper partly burnt, and pointing to a scorched mark on ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... not to have got out until some one came to help her. Perhaps the train had not pulled into the station yet and she ought to get back on it and wait. Yet if the train started before she found the conductor she might be carried on somewhere and be justly blame her for a fool. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... to bring was to be used to purchase some collections of curiosities and of books that had been offered the government, and to provide for their future care and disposal as a public trust for the benefit and use of the people. The lottery brought the desired money as a matter of course, for the "fool's tax" is the one form of revenue that is paid without stint and without grumbling. Almost fifty thousand pounds remained in the hands of the archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow-trustees after the prizes were paid. And with this ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... been my Case Tom. When I get into that Train of thinking, and consider the present Situation of our Country, it makes me as uneasy in my Coffin as a Rat shut up in a Trap. I remember an old She[1] Fool, that was fonder of scribling than reigning, used to say, that the Dead have that melancholy Advantage over the Living of first forgetting them; but 'tis as false as ten thousand other Truths, that your Philosophers and Politicians ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... "Fool if she doesn't," replied this elegant young gentleman, flippantly. Extremes meet. The naked savage has a fairly low estimate of the value of his womankind, but it is many degrees higher than that of this ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... the gods of luck at the bottom of them. Sake, when heated, mounts readily to the head, and a single small cup excites the half-witted man-servant to some very foolish musical performances. I am sorry to write it, but his master and mistress take great pleasure in seeing him make a fool of himself, and Ito, who is from policy a total abstainer, goes into convulsions ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... flavour by biting the pieces. My own theory was that as the box was there to hold biscuits and now held none, he had come to regard it as useless—as having lost its function, so to speak—also that its presence there was an insult to his intelligence, a constant temptation to make a fool of himself by visiting it half a dozen times a day only to find it empty as usual. Better, then, to get rid of it altogether, and no doubt when he did it he put a ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... the fair one respond in poetry or prose?" asked the Major, eyeing his nephew with the queerest expression, as much as to say, "O Moses and Green Spectacles! what a fool the boy is." ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Scalpa, and in the sound between it and Rasay, which extended about a league, the wind made the sea very rough. I did not like it. JOHNSON. 'This now is the Atlantick. If I should tell at a tea table in London, that I have crossed the Atlantick in an open boat, how they'd shudder, and what a fool they'd think me to expose myself to such danger.' ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... wrong," rejoined Josiah, who seemed to think that his brother's remark was not altogether complimentary. "Talents are required for the ministry, as you say, but judgment, tact, and industry are required to manufacture candles successfully. A fool would not make much headway in ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... it all; but it is their little thoughtful attentions when you are going away, that go right down to the bottom of your heart, and lift it up and make you feel inclined—as you stand alone by the rail when the sun goes down on the sea—to write or recite poetry and otherwise make a fool of yourself. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... "But what a fool I am to talk to you about the wind, not having seen you for three months! Surely there is something else for us to ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... enemy was able to get the information," Mr. Swift remarked. "But, potentially at least, it's even more dangerous that he was able to imitate my voice so well. If he could fool you, Tom, he could ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... say," remarked Uncle Ezra Mudge as he began his Sunday shaving and stropped his razor on his thumb-nail, "I want ter say thet eddication is a big thing, but there air some things it can't do. One of 'em is ter give brains ter a fool. No school wuz ever yit found thet could change a wooden head ter flesh en blood; en the pore teachers air bein' continua'ly pestered ter death with idiotic payrents a-tryin' to have 'em stuff brains in their kids which the good Lord dident give any to. You kin plant jimson ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... Everything proves him a fool. He will charge into battle, he will walk cheerfully beside a precipice, he will break his back pulling a heavy wagon, or break his leg or his neck in jumping a hurdle; yet he will go into a frenzy of fright at the sight of a running child, a roadside rock, or the shadow of a branch across ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... true, then Kraybo was a fool; if the second, then he was a liar, and was no more capable of handling the fire control of the ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... which are poisonous. The water hemlock (Cicuta virosa) produces symptoms not unlike those of hemlock; it has been mistaken for parsnip and celery. It contains an active principle, cicutoxin, which in some respects is allied to strychnine and picrotoxin. The fool's parsley, or lesser hemlock (AEthusa cynapium), is another member of this group, although doubt has been expressed as to whether it is really poisonous. The water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) is undoubtedly poisonous, especially to cattle. In ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... uncertain, but it was either the 31st of March or the 1st of April 1732. Haydn himself gave the latter as the correct date, alleging that his brother Michael had fixed upon the previous day to save him from being called an April fool! Probably we shall not be far off the mark if we assume with Pohl that Haydn was born in the night between the 31st of March and the ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... never learn that. I once posed the First Lord by simply asking the question. I went up just to ask for my promotion—for there's nothing like asking, you know, youngsters. The First Lord received me with wonderful civility. He took me for another Fitzgerald, and I was fool enough to tell him which I really was, or I believe he would have handed me out my commission and appointment to a fine brig I had in my eye, there and then. I saw by his change of countenance that I had made a mistake, and, as I ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... some concession, some sort of trade-monopoly—rubber, or gum, or niggers' blood, it is all the same thing—I should try to get that from the Brazils or the Bolivias or whoever thinks that it is theirs to sell. I am not such a fool: I do not want to trade, if I have got the people. They are strong, they can run, they live clean lives—nobody has spoiled them; they do not want to be rich; they are still a wonderful people; they know a leader ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... cars, I thought th' officials of the train were tars; Told them to "Coil that rope and clean the scuppers, And then go down below and get your suppers." This must be changed, or my good name will suffer, And folks will say, JIM FISK is but a duffer. To feel myself a fool and lose my head, Too, takes the gilding off the gingerbread; And makes me ask myself the reason why On earth I have so many fish to fry? The fact is, what I touch must have a risk Of failure, or it wouldn't suit JIM FISK, I'll conquer this, too—keep ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... the crag this very minute. Thou must quietly collect and arm a few of our stanchest men, together with the English servants left here with their young mistress. Let all be done secretly and quietly, and come after me with all speed. It may be that we are on a fool's errand, and that our fears are groundless. But truly it may be that our brothers are about to betray our guest into the hands of one ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to know how important he is, how free and how unfettered by rules, and the best way to this end is to shout and curse everything. The room was filled with shouts of "Good God! are we expected to get clean in babies' tubs?" "What a fool the Chief is." "Oh, damn your eyes, that's my towel." "No, there's yours, you blasted idiot." Gordon was immensely shocked at the language. He had come from a preparatory school run by a master with strong views on swearing, and for that matter on everything. ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... "you are a fool! You are a blithering idiot! You are a jackass! It never occurred to me before. I am the guilty one for placing such a temptation in your way. Now where's this ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wrong: the great cycle had begun its down-trend; they were already preparing the way for our fool-headed materialism. In the Seven against Thebes Aeschylus protested against the current of the age. Three years later, Athens, impatient of criticism, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... bold-faced villain as thou seest me! 'Tis true. I pay my debts, when they're contracted; I steal from no man; would not cut a throat To gain admission to a great man's purse; Would not betray my friend, To get his place or fortune; I scorn to flatter A blown-up fool above me, or crush the wretch beneath me; Yet, Jaffier, for all this, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... learn, and—and Harald, whom I thought wished me well, whom I loved so much, whom I would willingly serve with my whole heart and life—how coldly he spoke of me, who just before so warmly—Harald, why shouldst thou fool my heart so, if thou carest so little for what it feels, what ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... into the palm of his other hand. "Fool! Idiot!" he exclaimed, and it was evident that the epithets were intended ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... done to me that would be so plain, so pointed, so sensible, so scientific and matter of fact and thorough that I would be able in a minute to cut down to the quick with any man I met,—cut down to the quick and get what I wanted on any subject I took up, because nobody could fool me, because I couldn't ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... he had heard her out, "I really thought you had more common sense, Minnie, than to bother your head with things of that description. Are there not enough fanatics paid for doing these things? The girl must be a fool, and has no business to be out at this hour alone. Her people must be crazy too, ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... their indiscreet shining. Darkness and silence are excellent for knaves and tyrants; but the attempt to command the one or the other in the North, changes the knave to an imbecile and the tyrant to a fool. ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... hurricane and fire! Through them I speak with man as through the stars, The dews, the flowers, and every gentler thing; Some learn my lesson in the paths of peace; Some con it low at desolation's knee; Only the fool hath said: ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... by turns:—but as they pass'd, 'Strong was my trust, and here I am at last. 'When I dwelt young and cheerful down the Lane. '(And, though I say it, I was much like JANE,) 'O'er flow'ry fields with Hind, I lov'd to stray, 'And talk, and laugh, and fool the time away: 'And Care defied; who not one pain could give, 'Till the thought came of how we were to live; 'And then Love plied his arrows thicker still: 'And prov'd victorious;—as he ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... sentiment had been loudly applauded, but he himself had sense enough to see that it was contrary to fact, and that men were not born equal. One was the son of a noble, the other of a serf. One child was a cripple and a weakling from its birth, another strong and lusty. One was well-nigh a fool, and another clear-headed. It seemed to him that there ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... case in point. I am ashamed every time I think of my bursting out before an unconcerned public with that bombastic pow-wow about burning publishers' letters, and all that sort of imbecility, and about my not being an imitator, etc. Who would find out that I am a natural fool if I kept always cool and never let nature ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... work. And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred, But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou will not judge me hard. Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool — Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool. I was just like a child with money; I flung it away with a curse, Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot's purse; Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine, I, the worker of workers, everything ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... he answered slowly. "I'm a fool to make any mystery of it. I'll tell you. There is a girl there, the manager's daughter. I met her in the lane when I was following the lorry, and asked her about petrol. She was frightfully decent; came back with me and told her father what I wanted, and all that. But, Hilliard, here's the point. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... to his own subsequent assassination. Lorenzino de' Medici, the Florentine Brutus of the sixteenth century, is the hero of the tragedy. Some of his relatives, however, must first appear upon the scene before he enters with a patriot's knife concealed beneath a court-fool's bauble. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... affair, I imagine; but even so I am not fool enough to tackle such a fellow with his own weapons. You leave it to me, and don't be anxious. But I must be off if I'm to stalk him before he goes through the letters. No, I know what I'm doing, and I shall do ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... very fine jest! When the heavens all know, they but stink at the best. Tho' ye think you much mend with your washes the matter, And help the ill-scent with your orange flower water; But when you've done all, 'tis but playing the fool, And like stifling a T——d, in a cedar close stool: Besides, Gods of judgment have often confest That the natural scent without art is the best." The Goddesses all, at these sayings, took snuff, And rose from their seats ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... my curiosity was pricked. The figure in sealskin looked very girlish; the veiled head was bowed. The mystery took on human personality for me, and Monny Gilder was no longer obstinate; she was a loyal friend. I did not see that we could be of use to the poor little fool who had married a Turk, yet I was suddenly ready to do what I could. As Rechid Bey brought his wife to the top of the gangway, I lounged out, and spoke. Disconcerted, the stout, good-looking man of thirty let drop the arm of the girl, putting ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... said angrily. "I guess 'Kind Kurt' is a blankety blank fool, as some people say. I've been a lot kinder to you than you know. When I heard of your case and Bender pointed you out to me and said he'd got you locked up, I thought you were one of the many young city ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... almost always makes men little better than treacherous savage robbers in their ways; and they were all so jealous of one another that there was no obedience to any kind of government, nor any discipline in their armies. Byron soon said he was a fool to have come to Greece, and before he could do anything he died at Missolonghi, in the year 1824. But though the Greeks fought in strange ways of their own, they at least won respect and interest by their untamableness, and though Missolonghi was taken, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... remove. There will be a nine days' railing of it and no more: and if on the ninth day you should not exactly wish never to have known me, the better reason will be demonstrated to stand with us. On this one point the wise man cannot judge for the fool his neighbour. If you do love me, the inference is that you would be happier with than without me—and whether you do, you know better than another: so I think of you and not of them—always of you! When I talked of being ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... all! caps off! Old Blue Light's going to pray; Strangle the fool that dares to scoff! Attention! it's his way! Appealing from his native sod In forma pauperis to God Lay bare thine arm—stretch forth thy rod, Amen! ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... absence, my earnest desire to reach home, and my being robbed that very day. She treated me with the greatest kindness, gave me a good supper for nothing, and then let me make love to her. But from the very moment that I was such a fool as to dally with her, my mind seemed to desert me. I even gave her the clothes which the robbers in common decency had left me, and the little earnings I made there by working as cloakmaker so long as I was in good physical condition; until ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... come here on a fool's errand, Major Pierson," replied the captain. "We are alone now, and we may call ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... mind in a flash. 'Why, doctor,' I said, 'I guess I feel an almighty fool, but I owe it to you to let you know that it wasn't the Bill Sikes business I was up to.' Then I went on and mumbled out something about a girl. I trotted out the stern guardian business, and a nervous breakdown, and finally explained ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... how much provoked he was with himself, his 'first term,' he said, 'having only shown him what an intolerable fool he had to keep in order.' By his account, he could do nothing 'without turning his own head, except study, and that stupefied it.' 'Never was there a more idle fellow; he could work himself for a given time, but his sense would not second him; and was it not most ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... torrents of unsufferable reproaches, not knowing what more to say, he accused me of having sold his ciphers. I burst into a loud laughter, and asked him, in a sneering manner, if he thought there was in Venice a man who would be fool enough to give half a crown for them all. He threatened to call his servants to throw me out of the window. Until then I had been very composed; but on this threat, anger and indignation seized me in my turn. I sprang to the door, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... place." As Corinna spoke she got up and roamed restlessly about the room, because the sight of that passive figure, wrapped in wilted plum blossoms, made her feel as if she wanted to scream. "You can't help being a fool, Alice," she said sternly, "and as long as you are a pretty one, I suppose men won't mind. But you must continue to be a pretty one, or it is ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... story, I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Simpson. "Whatever else my husband is, he isn't a fool, and he'd no more think of cutting off his whiskers and dyeing his hair than you would of telling ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... Shepperton are both pretty little spots where they touch the river; but there is nothing remarkable about either of them. There is a tomb in Shepperton churchyard, however, with a poem on it, and I was nervous lest Harris should want to get out and fool round it. I saw him fix a longing eye on the landing-stage as we drew near it, so I managed, by an adroit movement, to jerk his cap into the water, and in the excitement of recovering that, and his indignation at my clumsiness, he forgot all about ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... glory of our British empire; yet at intervals our confidence in its fortunes is shaken by some sharp panic; the decline and fall of England is predicted. It is, indeed, perilous to be overconfident, to live in a fool's paradise, for some of us have seen in our lifetime the sudden catastrophes that have overtaken great empires. But history may comfort us when we read how often the downfall of England has been predicted, how we have been on the brink of shooting down Niagara, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Agnes, I keenly dislike being played the fool with. You saw Cecilia Constable this morning. You won her round to your views ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... followed me, I thought she spoke in jest. "Not at all," she said. "I saw him twice as you passed, walking close at your heels. He only left you at the corner of the maniap'; he must be still behind the cook-house." Thither I ran—like a fool, without any weapon—and came face to face with the cook. He was within my tapu-line, which was death in itself; he could have no business there at such an hour but either to steal or to kill; guilt made him timorous; and he turned and fled before me in the night in silence. As he went I kicked him ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... exclaimed, violently, "you are a fool, an impostor, a true Jesuit. Do you understand me? You have sought to enjoy a triumph over me by witnessing the state of embarrassment in which you imagined I was placed; you would gladly, you and yours, see me far from the king: but, poor ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... things, as Purgatory, etc.; but I fand him a stubborn fellow, one woluntary blind. We was in dispute above a hower and all in Latin: in the tyme gathered about us neir the half of the parish, gazing on me as a fool and mad man that durst undertake to controlle their cure, every word of whose mouth, tho they understood it no more nor the stone in the wall did, they took for ane oracle, which minds me of the miserablenese and ignorantnese of the ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... back to back, then," said the fairy, snappishly. "I should think any fool might have known enough to ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... intend that you shall not be a fool! Our game is not lost. Let me once get the lay of the land, ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... ye dolts," continued their captain, "looking around as if ye were bewitched? Bring the litter in to the rear.—Mitchell, you old fool, are you grown a coward in your age? Are you not ashamed to set such ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the window, heaved a deep sigh, and took several more turns across the room. "I believe it is all true," at length he said, "and I have been a confounded fool. I'll turn about, and lead a different life, so help me Heaven! I have wealth, and not a chick nor a child to spend it on, nor to leave it to when I die, and so I'll spend it in doing good, if I can only find out the best way; that's the trouble. But never mind, I'll be my own ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... old fool," muttered Jack to himself, as, hindered by Dorry's busy touches, he proceeded to saddle the subdued animal; "but I can't never refuse her nothin'—that's where it is. Easy now, miss!" as Dorry, climbing up on the feed-box in laughing excitement, begged him to ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... to make of the whole movement nothing but either a delusion or a fraud inspired by refined and calculated policy. The philosophers saw deeper into the matter than that; though for them, also, religion was false, originating, as Voltaire put it, when {707} the first knave met the first fool. But they were able to see causes of religious change and to ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... pleasant faces there, My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair ... ... And oh the wicked fool I seemed in every kind of way To be here hauling frozen ropes on Blessed Christmas Day ... ... They heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me, As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea. But all that I could think of in the darkness and the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... this Hill. I've told you and Bob how he's got a fool bee in his bonnet, and is running around the Southwest looking for his father. The old man—judging from his photograph, which Hill totes around in his pocket—is a bigger freak than Hiram is. He's got a beak like a pelican, and is homely enough to ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... half-witted; the drunken sot mumbling in his stupor; the captives of life to whom death sings his insistent, luring songs; the half-idiotic peasant boy who tries to stammer out his declaration of love to the superb village belle; the wretched fool who weeps in the falling snowy night. He is those who have never before spoken in musical art, and now arise, and are about us and make ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Eternal and Infinite Spirit; and although such a statement may seem a paradox, yet I am convinced that before many more years have passed, the reconciliation of natural with spiritual phenomena will be an accomplished fact. The fool to-day may say in his heart, there is no God, but ere long not only religion, but Science herself, shall expose his lack of wisdom and ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... heart," said Kerneguy, smiling maliciously; "but you see how I suffer still from lameness.—Nay, nay, Albert," he whispered, resisting young Lee's attempt to prevail on him to leave the room, "can you suppose I am fool enough to be hurt by this?—on the contrary, I have a ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... which make up the chain of a woman's happiness." She adds: "The last message I ever received from him was about a year after we parted in Illinois. Mrs. Able visited Kentucky, and he said to her in Springfield, 'Tell your sister that I think she was a great fool because she did not stay here and marry me.'" She was even then not quite clear in her own mind but that ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... had no sooner read these words, so touchingly silly, than my anger against Pinkerton was swallowed up in gratitude. Of all the circumstances of my career—my birth, perhaps, excepted—not one had given my poor father so profound a pleasure as this article in the Sunday Herald. What a fool, then, was I to be lamenting! when I had at last, and for once, and at the cost of only a few blushes, paid back a fraction of my debt of gratitude. So that, when I next met Pinkerton, I took things very lightly; my father ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... small force, complete in itself, at the disposal of such men, more could be effected at the moment for the honour and interests of the country than by long and roundabout despatches, passing through so many hands that one fool in authority nullifies all, as a bad link in an otherwise good chain renders the whole useless. Omitting the other portions of the correspondence, the following letter from Major-general D'Aguilar, dated Hong-Kong, August 21, 1847, to Major-general Smelt, reveals sufficiently ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... even now that it was not worth living. She never even asked herself the question, whether it would not be better and easier to end all and leave Gregorio to his fate. Gregorio! Her smooth lip curled in contempt. A coward, a thief, a fool—why should she care what became of him? Coldly and sincerely she wished that she were going to kill him, and not Veronica. She despised the one, and hated the other; of the two, she would rather have let the hated one live. But to die herself seemed ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... had grown dark, and the music low and passionate, and for a moment no one was speaking. Only, deep in the thickets of my heart there sang a tragic nightingale that, happily, only I could hear; and I said to myself, 'Now the young fool is climbing the orchard wall! Yes, there go Benvolio and Mercutio calling him; and now,—"he jests at scars who never felt a wound"—the other young fool is coming out on to the balcony. God help them both! They have no eyes—no eyes—or surely ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... character. The intellectual capacities take a much more outward direction. They are expressed not only in the face and play of his features, but also in his walk, nay, in every movement, however slight it may be. One could perhaps discriminate from behind between a blockhead, a fool, and a man of genius. A clumsy awkwardness characterises every movement of the blockhead; folly imprints its mark on every gesture, and so do genius and a reflective nature. Hence the outcome of La Bruyere's remark: Il n'y a rien de si delie, de si ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... was the grand touch-stone of her character; the crisis of danger which shows whether a woman has that presence of mind which exalts her into a domestic heroine, an angel of comfort; or the weakness which sinks her into a helpless selfish fool. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to hold a sudden council of war. What are we going to do about it? Shall we stop and talk, trying to fool him, or ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... to be shame, carrying on over a brazen heifer like Daisy Taylor. Jus' cause she's been up North and come back, I reckon you cutting de fool sho 'nough now. She ain't studying none of you-all nohow. All she wants is what ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... of gold! when for thy sake The fool throws up his interest in both worlds; First starved in this, then damn'd in that to come. 819 BLAIR: The Grave, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... Mode, or borrowing from any foreign Wardrobe! Each of them are the standards of Fashion for themselves: like Gentlemen that are above the Direction of their Tailors, and can adorn themselves without the aid of Imitation. If other Poets draw more than one Fool or Coxcomb, there is the same Resemblance in them as in that Painter's Draughts, who was happy only at forming a Rose: you find them all younger Brothers of the same Family, and all of them have a Pretence to give the same Crest: But Shakespeare's ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... fool I was to pay him that five dollars!" thought Luke, regretfully. "If I hadn't been such a simpleton, I should have found out what brought him here, before throwing ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... this business of Public Community, which I am carried forth in the Power of Love and clear light of Universal Righteousness to advance as much as I can; and I can do no other, the Law of Love in my heart does so constrain me; by reason whereof I am called fool and madman, and have many slanderous reports cast upon me, and meet with much fury from some covetous people; under all of which my spirit is made patient and is guarded with joy and peace. I hate none, I love all, I delight to see everyone live ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... tales and calumnies, as if Philip, by a splendid marriage and important alliance, were preparing the way for settling the kingdom upon Arrhidaeus. In alarm at this, he dispatched Thessalus, the tragic actor, into Caria, to dispose Pixodorus to slight Arrhidaeus, both as illegitimate and a fool, and rather to accept of himself for his son-in-law. This proposition was much more agreeable to Pixodorus than the former. But Philip, as soon as he was made acquainted with this transaction, went to his son's apartment, taking with him Philotas, the son of Parmenio, one ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... impossible. He busied himself with charts and the art of navigation. He dreamt of reaching the Spice Islands by sailing west, and after a time he laid his schemes before the King of Portugal. Whether he was laughed at as a dreamer or a fool we know not. His plans were received with cold refusal. History repeats itself. Like Christopher Columbus twenty years before, Magellan now said good-bye to Portugal and made his way ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... a fool of you as of me, Priscilla," is the squire's answer, whose tired mind can only grasp one thought,—the treachery of the woman he had loved! And then it all comes out, and the letter the false Katherine had written him is brought out from a little secret ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... dress and clothe facts! The tailor is the king of the century and the fig-leaf is its symbol; laws, art, politics, all things, appear in tights! Lying freedom, plated furniture, water-colour pictures, why! the public loves this sort of thing! So let us give it all it wants and gorge the fool! ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... thee, and thy seed, for the regeneration which I once trusted, fool that I was, mine own day might see effected. Let this pass. Thou art under the roof of the Nazarene. I will not believe that the arts we have resisted against fire and sword can prevail with thee. But, if I err, awful will be the penalty! Could I once know that thou hadst forsaken thy ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the man. "Well, I ain't a-goin' to fool with you no longer, Mrs. Gratz. I'm a-goin' to tell you right out what I am and who I am. I'm a detective of the police, and I'm looking up a ...
— The Thin Santa Claus - The Chicken Yard That Was a Christmas Stocking • Ellis Parker Butler
... "Get set, fool, and when the boy offers him a drink you are to shake your head. In that way he will think he has escaped being poisoned. He is just stalling now. I want this ship tuned up. If you fail, it is the Russian front ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... Wagner's music. You are deracinated; you are unpatriotic. For that there is no excuse. The arts are for you deadly. I am sure you are a lover of literature. Yet what a curse it has been for you! When you see one of your friends drinking wine, you call him a fool because he is poisoning himself. But you—you—poison your spirit with the honey of France, of Scandinavia, of Russia. As for ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... her surprise, made a step or two forward, but Lady Chillington waved her fiercely back. "Fool! fool! why don't you go away?" she cried. "Why do you stare at me so? Go away, and send Dance to me. You have spoilt my complexion ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... money is the main thing that matters in this world; and when your Aunt Margaret's left her savings to somebody else just because you wouldn't spend a few days with her this Christmas, then you'll know what it's like to go without—you'll know what a fool you were, and that nothing can't alter it ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... be spared," said Mr. Bucket, "which is the only thing that can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman; but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back. It's a pity but what we had seen ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Jan's face still as pallid as the gray snow under their feet, Gravois added: "You're a fool, Jan Thoreau. There's a crowd at your cabin, and ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... here, sir; Shakspeare says, 'The cloud-cap tower;' why, if he'd ever taken the trouble to luk at it, he'd seen better than that; an' if he wasn't a fool,—which I'm sure he wasn't, bein' a grand poet,—he'd know that the clouds never can rise to cap the tower, by reason that it stands up above the fall, and that the ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... my fool, thou art mistaken; perhaps thou takest a headsman's gleaming axe for the sun, and the red of ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... back to my own work. I had a grudge against it, someway. By and by the money was all gone and an old pal of mine offered to set me up in business out here, away from the city and old memories. And here I am again—the same old fool and numbskull. I'll sell out this week and git. What I'll do I don't know. I'm not a smart man. It was always Annie that did the heavy thinking and the advising and had ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... to do, nobody to worry us, and nobody to compete with? You would be unfit to speak to in a week. Besides, I shouldn't go. I don't care to profit by the price of a man's soul,—for that's what it would mean. Dick, it's no use arguing. You're a fool." ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... again and again; he could hardly believe his eyes. The worst thing that could possibly happen had befallen him. Where could she have gone, and why couldn't she tell him, and oh, how could he have been such a fool as to have gone on sleeping like a stupid log at the moment that she was going away? He would never be able to forgive himself for that. Was there any connection between her departure and her meeting with Alistair ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... three ambassadors to Bithynia, of whom one was gouty, another had his skull trepanned, and the other seemed little better than a fool; Cato, laughing, gave out, that the Romans had sent an embassy, which had neither feet, head, nor heart. His interest being entreated by Scipio, on account of Polybius, for the Achaean exiles, and there happening to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... me with pointed gallantry that could have no other meaning but that he honorably sought my hand. He has made me talked of and hated by my own sex, who envied his preference of me. I was living in the most gorgeous of fool's paradises, when a bird brought to my ear the astounding news that a woman, beautiful as Diana, had been found in the forest of Beaumanoir by some Hurons of Lorette, who were out hunting with the Intendant. She was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... thing, poor thing, but now she can tell me all about it and we won't betray one another. And that deceitful cat Inspee has known all about it for ages and has never told me. But I don't understand why that time at the swing Robert said: You little fool, you wont get a baby simply from that. Perhaps Hella knows. When I go to the gymnastic lesson to-morrow I shall talk to her first and ask her about it. My goodness how curious ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... out to me that I had been wrong and she right about him, from the beginning. She knew him. "And to think what a fool, what a damned silly fool I was, with my jealousy. When all those years there was never anybody but me. Do you remember Sybil Fermor, and Lady Hermione—and Barbara? To think I should have so clean forgotten what ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... was over, and he had determined to remain loyal to his principles, Thomas More walked cheerfully to the block. His wife called him a fool for staying in a dark, damp, filthy prison when he might have his liberty by merely renouncing his doctrines, as some of the bishops had done. But he preferred death to dishonor. His daughter allowed the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... standing there, and my face burned at the knowledge. But preserving what semblance of dignity I could, I stalked from the hall and upstairs to my room. I sat a long time thinking over the occurrence, and the more I pondered it, the more clearly I saw that I had played the fool. I did not know then, but I learned long afterward, that my conduct that night came near losing me the great happiness of my life. My cheeks flush even now as I think of my behavior. How foolish do the tragedies of youth appear, once time has ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... story to be, as to all main essentials, true—on this ground, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite was too great a fool to have invented it. Mr. Bruff and I agree with Mr. Luker, in considering this test of the truth of the story to be a perfectly ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... they have a special dislike of death. In France and England suicides are very common; in Italy they are almost unknown. The American recklessness of life completely astounds the Italian. He enjoys life, studies every method to preserve it, and considers any one who risks it unnecessarily as simply a fool. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... thing to make a work about," said he; "but if it will get me the maid, I shall never complain. But what a fool is my brother to ride into the world, and the thing all ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... What a fool I had been. To think that I had learned nothing from my long and dreadful experience of the methods of Dr. Fu-Manchu; to think that I had come alone in quest of him; that, leaving no trace behind me, I had deliberately penetrated ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... her arms around his neck, but Napoleon pushed her back. "You are a fool, Josephine!" he said, angrily. "This is childish; you ridiculously retard my departure. I do not wish to hear any more! Be kind enough to leave the carriage! It is necessary that ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Sinclair's horse was gun-shy indeed. At the explosion he pitched straight into the air with a squeal of mustang fright and came down bucking. The others forgot to look for the results of Lowrie's shot. They reined their horses away from the pitching broncho disgustedly. Sinclair was a fool to use up the last of his mustang's strength in this manner. But Hal Sinclair had forgotten the journey ahead. He was rioting in the new excitement cheering the broncho to new exertions. And it was in the midst of that flurry of action that the great blow fell. The horse stuck his right forefoot ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... bow of a thousand years, to strike within a thousand miles of a mark, the ingenuity of posterity could make it point-blank; and if he happened to be directly wrong, it was only to suppose, as in the case of Jonah and Nineveh, that God had repented himself and changed his mind. What a fool do fabulous systems ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... applied to him: "Bon petit roi, manque d'energie." The reply was: "I don't know who said that, Sir! Your prestige is exactly opposite to the German Emperor's prestige, but equally important to your country and to peace. It may have been a fool who said it, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... greatest anguish, until my reflections continually center upon and within myself, where wretchedness and sorrow dwell, undisturbed by one ray of hope and light. It seems to me that any person but a fool would know that I had not purposely led the life of misery that has marked my steps for fifteen years. It would have been merciful in comparison, if I had planted a dagger in my heart, for I have suffered an anguish ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... was a fool again, just like I was before, back home in America. Will you try to forget it, old ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... It proved to be desirable to begin a new railway from Wady Haifa across the desert to Abu Hamed at the northern tip of the deep bend which the Nile makes below Berber. To drive a line into a desert in order to attack an enemy holding a good position beyond seemed a piece of fool-hardiness. Nevertheless it was done, and at the average rate of about 1 1/4 miles a day. In due course General Hunter pushed on and captured Abu Hamed, the inhabitants of which showed little fight, being thoroughly weary of ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... from his discursive answer that she had not much of a name one way or another. She was not very fast. It took no fool, though, to steer her straight, he believed. Some years ago he had seen her in Calcutta, and he remembered being told by somebody then, that on her passage up the river she had carried away both her hawse-pipes. ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... make my peace with my mother was not surprising, but my old professional mentor, Mr. Hanks, loved a paradox; if he wanted to call a man a fool, he praised him for his wisdom; if he wished to disprove a proposition, he argued for it, adroitly exposing its weakness, and yet he wrote to ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... part. A Muhammadan must have his moustache short so that it may not touch and defile food entering the mouth. It is related that a certain Kazi had a small head and a very long beard; and he had a dream that a man with a small head and a long beard must be a fool. When he woke up he thought this was applicable to himself. As he could not make his head larger he decided to make his beard smaller, and looked for scissors to cut part of it off. But he could not find any scissors, and being in a hurry to shorten his beard he decided to burn ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... yes, that was another frolic of his. But Kitson's an old fool, and I have told him so a thousand times. So you saw him this morning ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... hardly expect co-operation," Phillips pointed out. "Laws against any kind of homicide are all well enough, but I for one don't see why I should draw the same sentence as a murderer. I had to protect myself or die—probably through having that crazy fool blow ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... post-office at Brechy. His progress in this respect was so marked, that some of the more cunning peasants began to suspect that Cocoleu was not so "innocent," after all, as he looked, and that he was cleverly playing the fool in order ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... the meanest trick a gentleman ever played. How did he dare know I wasn't nearsighted? And what a fool I was to be caught by that photograph—saw it as plain as day three yards off. I had most made up my mind to leave them off anyway, though they are awful stylish; they pinch my nose and make my head ache. But I'll wear them now," ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... Badger grumbled, nursing his numbed hand and arm, while a crowd gathered round him and Merriwell, asking excited and eager questions. "Do you think I'm fool enough to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... as Clym likes to come home into it. What a nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a man. It makes the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... you took your sudden journey. Under pretence of business indispensable With that sublime of rascals your attorney, Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible Of having play'd the fool? though both I spurn, he Deserves the worst, his conduct 's less defensible, Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee, And not from any love ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... De Grey, smiling, "that no man but a fool thinks it honourable to be in the wrong AT LAST. Is it not, therefore, best to begin by reasoning to find ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth |
