"Fool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or two of them, like oblong targets which one fires at with guns. They hardly moved in spite of all their canvas set, there was so little breeze. So I drifted in the slow ebb past the South Goodwin, and I thought: "What is all this drifting and doing nothing? Let us play the fool, and see if there are no ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... He was now in the power of Queen Margaret, who had at length the opportunity to repay him for his insults. To replace the crowns of Norway and Denmark, which he had sought to wear, she put upon his head a fool's cap, with a tail twenty-eight feet long, and repaid him for his insults and jests in other ways. After she had done her best to make him an object of laughter and ridicule she locked him up in a strong prison cell, where he was given six years ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... a great fellow, there's no use trying to fool with him," said Tom. "San Francisco surprised by the Japs—that's a ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... sweet folly was springing up in me while she held my hands in hers. Now, I was only a young man with dirty and blackened fingers, standing in a constrained position, and, I make no doubt, looking a great fool. The young lady vanished, and I followed madame into the little room. I am bound to say that she treated my ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... have forgotten the borrower, and fret over the missing volume, while there are thousands on my shelves from which the moments thus lost might gather treasure holding relation with neither moth, nor rust, nor thief; am I not like the disciples? Am I not a fool whenever loss troubles me more than recovery would gladden? God would have me wise, and smile at the trifle. Is it not time I lost a few things when I care for them so unreasonably? This losing of things is of the mercy of God; it comes ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... might very rashly conclude that when Reynolds spoke of the Dutch School as one "in which the slowest intellect was sure to succeed best," he meant to say that every successful Dutch painter was a fool. We have no right to take his assertion in that sense. He says, the slowest intellect. We have no right to assume that he meant the weakest. For it is true, that in order to succeed in the Dutch style, a man has need of qualities of mind eminently deliberate and sustained. He must be possessed ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... he said with inimitable craft; "we are as virtuous as that beautiful biblical girl whose name we bear; we can always marry as we please, but we are thirsty for Paris, where charming creatures—and we are no fool—get rich without trouble. We want to go and see if the great capital of pleasures hasn't some young Chevalier de Valois in store for us, with a carriage, diamonds, an opera-box, and so forth. Russians, Austrians, Britons, have millions on which we have an eye. Besides, we are patriotic; ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... of water which came to our waists, and in it we paddled our way until we got to a fairly good trench, and on the journey down imprecations of all kinds were hurled on the head of the offending Sergeant-Major. "Where is that damned fool of a Sergeant-Major?" asked one; "It was his gathering those mushrooms in the open that started Fritz." Just at that moment down the ditch came the Sergeant-Major limping; he had been slightly wounded in the leg by a bit of shrapnel, but he was ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... and went into the drawing-room, leaving Paul standing there. He looked after her, and a slight smile crossed his face as he thought of what a fool she was to think that he cared for her. His self-assurance led him to believe that the reason that Eva was not consenting to his proposal was indeed because of her father's condition, for he little dreamed, nor would his egotism ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... a cub fox; seems to float across an old pasture, stopping only to run about a bit among some cow tracks, to kill the scent; and so on towards his big hill. Before he gets there he will have a skilful retreat planned, back to the ponds, in case old Roby untangles his crisscross, or some young fool-hound blunders too near the rock whereon ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... at the new turn. "Be not so fool-hardy," he warned. "Your eyes are being needlessly ruined. Quickly replace those glasses lest ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... deal with Prince Eugen in this hotel, but I decided, then, to intercept him on the Continent, and I despatched Miss Spencer with some instructions. Troubles never come singly, and it happened that just then that fool Dimmock, who had been in the swim with us, chose to prove refractory. The slightest hitch would have upset everything, and I was obliged to—to clear him off the scene. He wanted to back out—he had a bad attack ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... ask me. I—I'm sick and disgusted. I shan't go to no church vestry to hear him lecture on Eyetalian paintin' or—or glazin', or whatever 'tis. And have you noticed how they bow down and worship him over to the Fair Harbor? Have you noticed Cordelia Berry? She's makin' a dum fool of herself, ain't she? Not that that's a very ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... instant as if guessing she might have derived that impression from Harold. "What has that to do with it? Does a rich man enjoy any more than a poor his wife's making a fool of him?" ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... thus (;) —— its Time is equal to two Commas, and is placed where the Sense is less compleat than the Colon, and more compleat than the Comma; as a wise Man's Heart is at his right Hand; but a Fool's Heart ...
— A Short System of English Grammar - For the Use of the Boarding School in Worcester (1759) • Henry Bate
... first fool of the whole navie To keepe the poupe, the helme, and eke the sayle: For this is my minde, this one pleasure have I, Of bookes to have greate plentie and apparayle. Still I am busy bookes assembling, For to have plenty it is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... analogy, their strength depending upon the similarity between the known case and the case in hand. It is not hard to find the analogy in these expressions: "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place"; "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched"; "A fool and his ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... feelings altered, altered incredibly, miraculously, so that I scarcely recognized myself. I no longer stood aloof from men, and found pleasure in intellectual superiority; I was willing to "become a fool for Christ's sake" if by any means I might save some. I issued a card of invitation to the services of my Church with this motto of St. Paul's upon it, which I now felt was mine. I had had for years feelings of resentment towards one ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... what he has got to do with the matter at all; for, I don't suppose that King Louis is such a fool as to expect to be king of England as well ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... with a laugh. "Thank you for telling me your real reasons. I was fool enough to think you acted from conviction—not that you were simply ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... you're goin' to scould me, and what is more, I know I disarve all you could say to me; but there's one thing you don't know, an' that is what I suffer for lettin' myself be made a fool of last night. Afther the advices you have so often given me, and afther what my father so often tould us to think of ourselves, and afther the solemn promises I made to you—and that I broke, I feel as if I was nothin' more or less than a ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... sarcastic," Croyden retorted. "I'm not responsible for the Bay, nor the Point, nor Parmenter, nor anything else connected with the fool ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... fool, now you are nearer the mark. The parson write 'Damn the stocks,' indeed! What boy do ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Fool! to suppose thy shallow wits Could quench a fire like that. Go, learn That cut into ten thousand bits Yet every bit would breathe ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... artistic uses of contrast as background and accompaniment, are well known to nature and the poets. Joy is continually worked on sorrow, sorrow on joy; riot is framed in peace, peace in riot. Lear and the Fool always go together. Trafalgar is being fought while Napoleon is sitting on horseback watching the Austrian army laying down its arms at Ulm. In Hood's poem, it is when looking on the released schoolboys ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... this idea, so fruitful in evil, still exist. In the great cities of central Europe, "witch towers," where witches and demoniacs were tortured, and "fool towers," where the more gentle lunatics were imprisoned, may still ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... elect? Do they not daily tell us that, except one man, who rendered himself worthy of this eternal happiness, there are millions going the high road to damnation? This being admitted, every Christian, who reasons, would be a fool to desire a future existence which he has so many motives to fear, or to reckon on a happiness which every thing conspires to show him is as uncertain, as difficult to be obtained, as it is unequivocally dependent on the fantasies of a capricious Deity, who sports ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... weird business, and his father advised him not to fool with it. His college chum said to him, as they chatted together for the last time before leaving school, that it would be grewsomely lonely to sit in a dimly lighted flag-station and have that inanimate machine tick off its ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... fool, sir." Mahon's face was red. "But it wasn't because I was too good for her. We'd never have pulled together; I know that now. She was born and bred in the wild ways. I respect her as much as I ever did—perhaps more because she has steadfastly refused even to let us know where she ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... "Fool!" A second voice, that of a woman, spat the word from the brush which fringed the roadway. "Speak to Assha with a straight tongue. If he is a spirit, he will know that you do not tell him the truth. And if he ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... is usually sufficient to defeat its purpose by showing that the boast cannot be carried out. The braggart is made to descend from the pedestal of the hero to the level of the fool. ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... drag forth any of those fool corpses of college, or out you go, bag and baggage." Jack glanced nervously around the room and ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... and a riddle once guessed is a very trivial thing. She, too, would be a very trivial thing when I had found a solution. It occurred to me that she wished me to regard her as a symbol, perhaps, of the future—as a type of those who are to inherit the earth, in fact. She had been playing the fool with me, in her insolent modernity. She had wished me to understand that I was old-fashioned; that the frame of mind of which I and my fellows were the inheritors was over and done with. We were to be compulsorily retired; to stand aside superannuated. It was obvious that she was better equipped ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... fool? a blunderer? if so, why does the Senate employ me? the girl is out of hearing, and there let her stay. As long as the noble dames are willing to breathe the night air, they shall have none of ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... finished the search he was more than ever dissatisfied with himself for being led away by such a chimera. He wrote to Miss Liverage again, informing her of the continued failure of his efforts, and declaring that he would not "fool with the matter" any longer. The nurse did not answer his last letter and it was evident that she too had "lost hope." Leopold never heard anything more from her or about her, and in a few weeks he had forgotten all about the "hidden treasure of ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... battles! But the Parisians wanting to save their trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open their gates and there is a beginning of the ragusades, and an end of all joy and happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the white flag out at the windows. The Emperor's closest friends among his generals forsake him at last and go over to the Bourbons, of whom no one had ever heard tell. Then he bids us ...
— The Napoleon of the People • Honore de Balzac
... I was a fool to allow her to come down; she is far too pretty to appear in public with me; any one would suppose her to be an equal," she muttered, irritably. "Who would have believed," she added, "that she could have gotten herself up ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... cried the afflicted one, making a vicious grab at an imaginary rodent's tail. "Ran dan the bastes! now they're gone. Musha, but it's a fool ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... lower in the scale of culture than the Manbos, and when they are under the influence of liquor yield to very slight provocation. As a result of a rash blow, the Maggugan's territory is invaded and his settlement is surrounded. He is an arrant coward as a rule, and, hot-headed fool as he is, jumps from his low, wall-less house only to meet the foeman's lance. Thus it happens that thousands and thousands of them have been killed. If we may believe the testimony of a certain Jesuit missionary, as stated in one of the Jesuit letters, the Maggugan tribe numbered 30,000 at ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... made me a fool just to do this some day, I guess." His face showed the expression ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... you what is not unknown in America: a crowd of older young gentlemen surrounding one younger fellow, forcing him to do disagreeable and disgusting things, pouring cold water down his back, making a fool of him to his personal injury, he being solitary, helpless, and abused—all this is not unknown in America, young gentlemen. But it is all very different from what we have been accustomed to consider American. If we would morally ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... to finish the Stuart dynasty ruled England for close on three-quarters of a century. That book-collecting should have existed at all under it is a marvel. But the hobby no longer depended upon the patronage of courts and courtiers. From the Wise Fool, James I., to the Foolish Fool, the second James, collectors pursued their hobby in London and out of it. James I. began to collect books at a very early age, and a list of his library was published ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... when I had got over the first one; and then I heard him talking to himself and saying it was growing late, and he must be getting home with something to eat for those brats, and pretty soon I heard his big wing sound; but I didn't come out, for I thought he was most likely just trying to fool me, and was sailing around overhead and waiting, which I still think he was, for a while. After a long time, though, I worked over where I could see out a little, and then I found it was night, and, of course, Mr. Eagle ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... that's the way it always works, trying to make folks do what they won't do. Joe ought to be hung, though. What does a fellow want to be a fool for and go and get drunk? But say, Todie, why don't you drink ...
— Three People • Pansy
... detecting the yawn of a weariness that cannot be concealed, is a great triumph for a woman. The affection which is equal to such a test certainly ought to be eternal. It is to be wondered at that women do not oftener employ it to judge of their lovers; a fool, an egoist, or a petty nature could never stand it. Philip the Second himself, the Alexander of dissimulation, would have told his secrets if condemned to a month's tete-a-tete in the country. Perhaps this is why kings seek to live in perpetual ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... dragon with my fruit, To watch it? Well, my son, I had thought you Had had more judgment to have made election Of your companions, than t' have ta'en on trust Such petulant, jeering gamesters, that can spare No argument or subject from their jest. But I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.—-Brainworm! ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... "'Don't be a fool, Paul,' answered Rawlings savagely; 'we don't want to run our necks into a noose needlessly. We want something more than the ship. We want to find out the name of the island and where it is before we can do anything like that. And if we found it out ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... talk like a gorgio—which is the same as talking like a fool—were you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. Wish to die indeed! A Rommany Chal would ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... the revival of these arguments under the title of "proofs" is possible. Even the famous Ontological Argument of St. Anselm was, I am convinced, no serious attempt to formulate an a priori proof of the existence of God, but was addressed to a particular case[91]—the "fool" who "said in his heart, 'There is no God,'" and who also maintained that God was "that than which no greater ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... sat thinking hour after hour. His table was covered with papers. He looked at one sheet of manuscript and said, "What a fool I must have been to think that I could write! I have never begun to live until now. I will burn this last chapter and ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... an old fool, Priscilla Perkins! The idea of all Boston being turned upside down for the sake of one little girl! People have come over from England before, big and little, and there's been a war and there may be another, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... April 1.—April-fool day always brings its trains of fun and broods of annoyances, the boys being determined to make the most of it. The usual plan is to induce a comrade to believe that either the colonel, his captain, or lieutenant, wants to see him. This scheme ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... pretended, for she became so irritated at being treated in this manner, that she called out to the servants to come to her assistance, and protected she would not stay an hour longer in the house if she could not be secured from such impertinencies; on which he said she was a silly romantic fool, and ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... them to him, so that he was nominally the owner of a good many lots. Lieutenant Halleck had bought one of each kind, and so had Warner. Many naval officers had also invested, and Captain Folsom advised me to buy some, but I felt actually insulted that he should think me such a fool as to pay money for property in such a horrid place as Yerba Buena, especially ridiculing his quarter of the city, then called Happy Valley. At that day Montgomery Street was, as now, the business street, extending from Jackson to Sacramento, the water of the bay leaving ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... am to be the means of enriching his family—the family of an obstinate old fool, who abused me like a pickpocket and spoiled a dress-coat for me when ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Bible of 1634 the first verse of the 14th Psalm is printed as "The fool hath said in his heart there is God''; and in another Bible of 1653 worldly takes the place of godly, and reads, "In order that all the world should esteem the means of ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... pipe out on the edge of his still uptilted chair, as he talked. "One fool like Abel I can stand, and I was just going to come in when Sally came in sight; and then I knew that two fools like Abel would make me sick. So I waited till the Creator of heaven and earth could get a minute ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... again the pine-tree sung:— 'Speak not thy speech my boughs among: Put off thy years, wash in the breeze; My hours are peaceful centuries. Talk no more with feeble tongue; No more the fool of space and time, Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme. Only thy Americans Can read thy line, can meet thy glance, But the runes that I rehearse Understands the universe; The least breath my boughs which tossed Brings again the Pentecost; To every soul resounding clear In a voice of ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... understand any single event of the Middle Ages. For all that is enduring in them was done by men such as these. History, indeed, records twenty undoings for one deed, twenty desolations for one redemption; and thinks the fool and villain potent as the wise and true. But Nature and her laws recognize only the noble: generations of the cruel pass like the darkness of locust plagues; while one loving and brave heart establishes ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... a great subject, and he rises to the level of his theme and makes the most of it. At times I have wondered if Boswell were not really a genius so great and profound that he was willing to play the fool, as Edgar in "Lear" plays the maniac, and allow himself to be snubbed (in print) in order to make his telling point! Millionaires can well afford to wear ragged coats. Second-rate man Boswell may have been, as he himself so oft admits, yet as a biographer he stands ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... I was going to recommend to you, when I received your letter: it has pleased and moved me strangely, all (I mean) that relates to Paoli. He is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure he could invent nothing of this kind. The true title of this ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... as a thing is beautiful, whether of man or God, it has this heroic helplessness about it with the passing soul or generation of souls. If people are foolish, it can but appeal from one dear, pitiful fool to another until enough of us have died to make it time for a wise man again. History is a series of crises like this, in which once in so often men who say "I" have crossed the lives of mortals—have puzzled the world enough ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... he. He shook the cap in front of the others. "Here's fur the lil' rooster; step up to the capen's office an' settle, gents!" he called. "'Member what de Bible says, 'Fool an' his money soon ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... man alone is supposed to have: but that caution which is not under the guidance of reason, but is attended with a base and low dejection, is called fear. Fear is, therefore, caution destitute of reason. But a wise man is not affected by any present evil; while the grief of a fool proceeds from being affected with an imaginary evil, by which his mind is contracted and sunk, since it is not under the dominion of reason. This, then, is the first definition, which makes grief to consist in a shrinking ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... I heard something about the unworthiness of certain white geese out of stuffy drawing-rooms. It sounds mad, but the lady knows exactly what she wants. I also heard your praises sung. I sat there like a fool not ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... the matter of my former affidavit and of the bedstaff in the dispensing-room, and said that a house where such things happened was no place for me. At which he, looking very black upon me, said no more, but called me fool, and said he would pay what was owing me in the morning; and so, his horse being waiting, went out. So for that night I lodged with my sister's husband near Battle Bridge and came early next morning to my late master, who then made a great matter that I ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... was taken from Algar, son of Leofric, and given to Baldwin Redvers. Countisbury was taken from Ailmer, and held by William himself. Lynton was taken from Ailward Touchstone—it is interesting to find the name of Shakespeare's fool in Domesday Book—and held by William. Combe Martin (then called "Comba") was taken from Aluric and held by Jubel. Bideford and Clovelly were taken from Brihtric and given ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... him. The painted mush shook stars in her ears, opened vistas on the beyond. Save for him she would have been quite happy. But his remark annoyed her. It caused her to revise her opinion. Instead of an inoffensive insect he was an offensive fool. None the less, as the concert progressed, she revised it again. On entering the box she had seen his name on the door. The memory of that, filtering through the tinted polenta from the ancient cupboards, softened her. A ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Marilla Cuthbert was an old fool when I heard she'd adopted a girl out of an orphan asylum," she said to herself, "but I guess she didn't make much of a mistake after all. If I'd a child like Anne in the house all the time I'd be a ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... only one in substance, and that he should have dared to hint that those which he (Cardan) had sent for solution were not his own, but the property of Giovanni Colla. Cardan had found Colla to be a conceited fool, and had dragged the conceit out of him—a process which he was now about to repeat for the benefit of Messer Niccolo Tartaglia. The letter goes on to contradict all Tartaglia's assertions by arguments which do not seem entirely ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... know nothing 'bout it; what are you driving at? Bill, you know that my 'pinion of you is 'bout the same as it is of that tramp Motoza, so, if you've got anything to say to me, out with it! I hain't any time to fool away." ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... Cart', I'm not going to argue with you. It's not on the square to Skipper even to talk about it, but don't be a crazy fool. Would she have come to me ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... he resumed, "I got out of my car in a big hurry at the top of the Haymarket. A fool on a motorcycle passed between the car and the sidewalk just as I stepped down, and I knew nothing further until I woke up in a drug store close by, feeling very dazed and with my coat in tatters and my ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... the governor thought he looked so brave. It turns what sweetness I have to gall, to hear, or hear of, the remarks of some of my neighbors. When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my townsmen observed that "he died as the fool dieth"; which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly, that "he threw his life away," because he resisted the government. ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... thing, God wot! Rose plot, Fringed pool, Ferned grot— The veriest school Of peace; and yet the fool Contends that God is not— Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool? Nay, but I have a sign: 'Tis very sure ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... all the same. I made Mr. Sabin write for me to Sir Ralph. But there came a lawyer's letter and fifty pounds—and that was to be the last, they said. So when Mr. Sabin died, I said I'd come over and see for myself. But I'm ill—you see—and John's a fool—and I must find some one as 'ull tell me what to do. If you're a gentleman living here"—she peered into his face—"perhaps you'll tell me? Lady Fox-Wilton's left comfortable, I know. Why shouldn't she do what's handsome? Perhaps you'll give me a word of advice, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he was reading this verse: "A fool despiseth his father's instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent." There were two listeners to this lesson. Warren's father in the study was having a great hunt after some papers, but in his haste he couldn't help stopping to listen to the sweet little voice repeating ...
— Sunshine Factory • Pansy
... if it should be answered, through and under Christianity, the fool in his heart would scoff and say: 'What woman thinks of religion in her youthful courtship?' No; but it is not what she thinks of, but what thinks of her; not what she contemplates in consciousness, but what contemplates her, and reaches her by a necessity ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... "Are you a fool, girl!" screeched the autocrat, violently. "I never thought you so, and if he had said anything that was meant for an offer of marriage, you would have understood it quickly enough. Either you're telling me the truth, or you're lying. Either he proposed ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... fool by fits is fair and wise; And e'en the best, by fits, what they despise." —Pope's Ess., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... their mistake in trying to fool anyone with that thing was in their design of that laser component," said Dr. Davenport. "Or, I should say, the thing that is supposed to look ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett
... know. I have no plans. I won't say with Romeo that I am fortune's fool—but I am fortune's shuttlecock; and I suppose that means ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... further on, towards the end of the pamphlet, he quotes an authority that Americans must respect—"Old John Randolph, the American orator, was asked one day, at a dinner-party in London, whether the ballot prevailed in his State of Virginia? 'I scarcely believe,' he said, 'we have such a fool in all Virginia as to mention even the vote by ballot; and I do not hesitate to say that the adoption of the ballot would make any nation a set of scoundrels if it did not find them so.'"—John Randolph ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... whole thing quite fool-ish, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh, and as she could not think what to say she bowed and took the thim-ble, while she looked as staid ...
— Alice in Wonderland - Retold in Words of One Syllable • J.C. Gorham
... fool as you are," cried Julien; but he did not say anything more about sending Rosalie away, and a fortnight later the maid was able to get up and perform ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... told you I couldn't explain. Her whole attitude—toward me and everybody and everything—has changed. You know I have a quick temper, but I don't want to quarrel or be rude to a woman, especially my wife; yet I'm driven to it, and feel like ten thousand devils after I've made a fool of myself. She's making it devilishly uncomfortable for me," he went on nervously. "She's got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women; and—you understand—we meet in the morning at ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... like that of his companions in morals, was this, that it would turn out that there is no God; but he had too much enlightenment to be an atheist; who is a particular kind of fool much more rare than is thought. This enlightenment importuned him; he tried to extinguish it and could not. A mortal soul would have been to him a resource; but he could not convince himself of its existence. A God and an immortal soul, threw him into sad straits, and yet he could not blind ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... cruelty and tyranny. Beginning with Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, down to the present time, the same key has been struck, the same song as been sung, with here and there a rare exception—as in the case of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Judge Tourgee's A Fool's Errand, Dr. Haygood's Our Brother in Black, and some others of less note. The white man's story has been told over and over again, until the reader actually tires of the monotonous repetition, so ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... Conrad. "You raw cub!—you are playing with dynamite and due for a fall. So is your fool country! Though Perez here has lost his nerve and turned traitor to our deal, that is only a little puff of wind against the bulwarks of the Fatherland! We will hold Granados; we will hold the border; and with Mexico (not this crook of the west, but real Mexico) we will ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Halliday greeted us very gruffly. He said he wouldn't have us in his barn. "You'll be amussin' up the hay so't wouldn't be fit fer the horses to eat. Any boy that is fool enough to build a fire on a straw bed ought to go right home to his mother, and he hadn't oughter be trusted with matches, nuther. He might ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... antiquaries never entertained any doubt of this remote origin. It may, however, be reasonably doubted. The chief appendage of the Vice or buffoon of the ancient moralities was a gilt wooden sword, and this also belonged to the old Clown or Fool, not only in England but abroad. "The wooden sword directly connects Harlequin with the ancient Vice and more modern Fool," says the author of the letter-press to Cruikshank's Punch, apparently with ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... are you not ashamed to be so taken in like a fool? Yes, I should be ashamed, if it had been an open enemy who had so deceived me. But, to my mind, when friend cheats friend, a deeper stain attaches to the perpetrator than to the victim of deceit. ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... were a fool,' cried Lady Kirkbank, almost beside herself with vexation, for it had been borne in upon her, as the Methodists sometimes say, that if Mr. Smithson should prosper in his wooing it would be better for her, Lady Kirkbank, who would have a claim upon his kindness ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and simple air, She issued forth, like Hebe, young and fair, To neighb'ring field, fresh as the rosy dawn; Nor stile oppos'd her; like a bounding fawn Graceful she sprang: so prankish was the air, Had but the love-sick Daphanel been there, He would have sigh'd: alas! poor love-sick fool! Thou rather Zephyr dost inflame than cool! And now, my Muse, the fatal spot disclose, Where, bath'd with dew, the modest Mushroom rose. Less fair the swan, by Richmond's flow'ry side, That in the river views herself with pride, As, gazing on her, some their stay prolong, To see her sail in majesty ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... every child work at her, every fool judge of her, and thousands pass her by and see nothing; and she has her joy in them all, and in them ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... least part as acquaintances," Lyman replied. "Until a few moments ago I was willing to stand a good deal from you; that part of your principles that I do not like I was willing to ascribe to a difference of opinion, but just now you called me a fool because I had refused to declare those books to be worth a hundred dollars. Up to that time we might have parted in reasonably good humor, but since then I haven't thought very well of you. And you'll have to take ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... dishonourable days? This is my reward. She contrived to enter my house this evening, dressed like a farmer's boy, and you may imagine what ensued; rage, hysterics, and repentance. I am sure if Monteagle had seen me, he would not have been jealous. I never opened my mouth, but, like a fool, sent her home in my carriage; and now I am going to be run through the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Majesty would receive the news. He adopted a middle course as the safest, and tried to appear neither sorry nor rejoiced. Theodore listened to his tale and exclaimed, "Thank God, my enemy is dead!" Then, addressing the messenger, he added, "You fool! why did you not on reaching me shout out 'Miserach' (good tidings)? I would have given you my ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... grief as is the blame: Thou art not what thou wast before, What reason I should be the same? He that can love unloved again, Hath better store of love than brain; God send me love my debts to pay, While unthrifts fool ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... be a fool! I have something to say to you a deal more important than this damned nonsense!" He struck his hand ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... highly probable that the favorable opportunity had been lost, and that, taking advantage of the night, they were already departed from the country, if such (and he doubted it not) was their intention. "What a cursed fool," he muttered to himself, "to let a thimbleful of liquor upset me on such an occasion; but, at all events, here goes for another trial. With the impatient, over-indulged Sampson, to determine on a course of action, was to carry it ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... who are chosen—well, let's be frank—as ours was, for instance, from out a number of men who don't know the difference between a switching charge and a differential rate, are going to regulate the whole business in six months' time? Cut rates; yes, any fool can do that; any fool can write one dollar instead of two, but if you cut too low by a fraction of one per cent. and if the railroad can get out an injunction, tie you up and show that your new rate prevents the road being operated at a profit, how ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... possible construction upon the scene which he has just witnessed. Was it a comedy, or am I in earnest? Ah! I have deliberately fallen into the trap against which Malespini warned me. I have lingered too long in this fool's paradise. Love and its penalty have stricken me in the same instant. Thank Heaven! no thought of this madness of mine can have entered the pure mind of my lady. Until this night I have breathed no word that could have betrayed it, and even now she doubtless thinks my ravings ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... chap," was what the pawnbroker said, "but I like your pluck. Every man's got to make a fool of himself one time or the other," he added, apologizing ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... was a lass—a fair one As fair as e'er was seen, She was indeed a rare one, Another Sheba queen. But fool, as I then was, I thought she loved me true, But now alas! she's left ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... "there was only wanting that. Blamed for having been less of a fool than another might have been." And he went to the door, allowing his spurs to jingle in true military style. But when he was on the threshold, feeling that the king's desire ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for proving and preserving ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... down Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. And then all the Tartar host would praise Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 535 To glad deg. thy father in his weak old age. deg.536 Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man! Dearer to the red jackals deg. shalt thou be deg.538 Than to thy friends, and to thy ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... of me—ver' unkind. I go away ver' sad. No use, I say, she like dose soldiers best. But I see her again; I hear her laugh—it sound like angels singing—I say, no, I can not go away; I stay here and make her love me. Yes, I do everysing she ask—but everysing! I wear earrings; I make myself into a fool ...
— Jerry Junior • Jean Webster
... is repellent, because he is self-absorbed, conceited, contemptuous. He has grown up inside a sort of walled fortress, and he thinks that everyone outside is a knave or a fool. He has not changed. It is this change, this progress of ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mess, with the help of the lawyers, it would have been infinitely best. His own will felt itself strong and determined enough for any such task. But Sir Arthur, in his strange, broken state, could not be brought to make decisions, and would often, after days of gloom and depression, pass into a fool's mood, when he seemed for the moment to forget and ignore the whole tragedy. Since he and Douglas had agreed with the trustees to sell the pictures, that sheer bankruptcy might just be escaped, Sir Arthur had been extravagantly cheerful. Why not have their usual shooting-party after all?—one ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of mind. With a firm hand, he lowered the ladder. But his wit was not quick. He should have carried it along the wall and placed it behind the boys. Instead, it descended several yards away. The bear, who appeared to be no fool, lowered his forepaws and ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... over the map. When Carl heard the door closed he looked up, a scowl on his face. "Curse the old fool," he muttered. "Wonder why he asked me if it was our ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved children. "Really, this puzzles me!" quoth Mr. Smith, with the irony of conscious rectitude. "Asking pardon of the painter, I pronounce him a fool, as well as a scandalous knave. A man of my standing in the world, to be robbing little children of their clothes! Ridiculous!" But while he spoke, Memory had searched her fatal volume, and found a page, which, with her sad, calm voice, ...
— Fancy's Show-Box (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sopa boba; literally, "to eat fool soup"—that is, to live at another's expense; perhaps alluding to the former custom of maintaining fools or jesters in the households of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... not keep you away from her ladyship. This is only hail and farewell. Good night. I declare, Rothsay, you look quite worn out. Don't see any other visitor to-night, in case there should be another fool besides myself come to worry you at this hour. Now good-by," said the visitor, rising ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... When he pulled out he shook hands all around, I mind. Yes, sir! with tears in his eyes he did. Told us no matter how high he rose in th' world he'd never forget his old comrades—always rec'gnize 'em on th' street an' all that. On his way down town he was fool enough to go into one o' these here Romany Pikey dives for to get his fortune told. This gypsy woman threw it into him he was goin' to make his fortune in th' next two or three days by investin' his dough in a certain brand of oil shares. . ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... Shovell? Violet Ashwin she was, and married young Charlie Shovell, some sort of a publisher and really rather a nice fool. She is an absolute dear. Gay and loyal and adorably kind. No, not a bit sentimental. Shy and yet has a way with her, and, thank Heaven, not the least bit of a scalp-hunter. We did think that Master Charles, who was distinctly by way of being a philanderer, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... it through, but I have no notion of being treated like a slave or a fool," said Sandy, as he lay down upon the half-deck, and began to gaze into the gloom ahead of the boat. "Luff a little," he added, as he discovered the dim outline of ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... will say: You are an unfortunate fool, who speak numberless absurdities, although I could not expect aught else from you, and would not punish you for them. But you have had the audacity of not only insulting others, by which you forgot truth and charity, but praised yourself ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... he strangled his mistress, because he addressed an almost disrespectful letter to the Primate of England beginning "My good Owl"—or for any suchlike reason; and that he now remained on the island only because nobody was fool enough to lend him the ten pounds requisite for ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... I'm such a fool. But then sometimes I despise him. If it wasn't fer me dear old mother, that maybe I'll never see again," and Maggie wiped her eyes with her apron, "I'd join the Sisters. I think maybe I have got a vocation, as they ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... an Arabic proverb taken from the mouth of an Oriental: "Men are four. 1. He who knows not, and knows not he knows not. He is a fool; shun him. 2. He who knows not, and knows he knows not. He is simple; teach him. 3. He who knows, and knows not he knows. He is asleep; wake him. 4. He who knows, and knows he knows. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... "More fool you," he barked, in his harshest voice. Mr. Newman smiled, and laid his hat down on the table and ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... spoke plainly to her confidants: "M. de La Fayette will only be the Mayor of Paris that he may the sooner become Mayor of the Palace. Petion is a Jacobin, a republican; but he is a fool, incapable of ever becoming the leader of a party. He would be a nullity as mayor, and, besides, the very interest which he knows we take in his nomination may bind him to the king."—Lamartine's Histoire ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... having now provided A gentleman of noble parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd, Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportion'd as one's heart would wish a man,— And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender, To answer, 'I'll not wed,—I cannot love, I am too young,—I pray you pardon me:'— But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you: Graze where you will, you shall not house with me: Look to't, ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... mind owning it was Mary Smith), and in which I stuck it for the night. But, somehow, I did not sleep much for thinking of it, and woke very early in the morning; and, if the truth must be told, stuck it in my night-gown, like a fool, and admired myself ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and hereupon all fled out of the town as fast as they could, carrying all their goods and riches, as also all the powder; and having nailed all the great guns, so as the pirates found not one person in the whole city, but one poor innocent man who was born a fool. This man they asked whither the inhabitants were fled, and where they had hid their goods. To all which questions and the like, he constantly answered, "I know nothing, I know nothing:" but they presently put him to the rack, and tortured him with cords; which torments ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... usual, in a surly tone: "By your question you must either take me for a pimp or an idiot. What, in the name of nonsense, should I know of such a rascal, unless I were to court his acquaintance with a view to feast my own spleen, in seeing him fool the whole nation out of their money? Though, I suppose, his chief profits arise from his practice, in quality of pander. All fortune-tellers are bawds, and, for that reason, are so much followed by people of fashion. This fellow, I warrant, has got sundry convenient apartments ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Oliver. "Now at last the sun of truth peeps forth from all this cloud of righteous indignation at my bad Tressilian blood and pirate's ways! You, too, are but a trafficker. Now see what a fool I am to have believed you sincere, and to have stood here in talk with you as with an honest man." His voice swelled and his lip curled in a contempt that struck the other like a blow. "I swear I had not wasted breath with you had I known you for so ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... "What a fool you are," said one workman to another, "to take so much pains with that job, when you don't get much pay for it. 'Get the most money for the least work,' is my rule, and I get twice as much money as ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... bit of it right is right, and wrong is wrong. It is only the fool who does wrong, and says he "did it for the best." And if there's one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of than another, it is fools. Their particular and chief way of saying "There is no God" is this of declaring that whatever their "public opinion" may be is ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... it was cruel. It was brutal. But only he knew how just it had been. In his moments of pride he had said all those things, half in fun and half in earnest, and he began to wonder how he could have been so many kinds of a fool for ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... seeing Megadorus) I knew it! Something told me I was going on a fool's errand when I left the house; that's why I hated to go. Why, there wasn't a single man of our ward there, or the director either, who ought to have distributed the money. Now I'll hurry up and hurry home: I'm here in the body, but that's where ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... and hern," old Hiram rose and turned with his hand on the forelock of the mule hero to say to the assembled court room. "Go around and halter him quick, Jed, 'fore he breaks away again, the durned fool," he added in ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... he said; "don't be a damn fool. And now so-long! I may bring you home a job to-night, but if I don't you've got enough to live on for a ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... are clever dogs and dull dogs, just as there are sages and idiots, but any dog who was not a fool would have known and recognised his master's splendour and importance if he had belonged at this epoch to Monsieur Dorn. Lil saw him sitting up there in vivid colours, heard him shouting in a voice ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... disputants seemed sometimes as if they would have laid aside the character of philosophers, but for the seasonable interposition of the Brahmin. Wigurd, our host, often laboured with his accustomed zeal, to prove that every one who opposed him, was either a fool, or biassed by some petty interest, or the dupe of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... to Mademoiselle," she said. "She thinks a great deal of you, and I want you to give her some good advice. You know what society is, and you know that she ought to be proud of her advantages, and not make a fool of herself. Many a girl would be glad enough of what she has before her. She's got money, and she's got chances, and I don't begrudge her anything. She can spend all she likes on clothes and things, and I'll take her anywhere if she'll behave herself. They wear me out—her and her ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... case the beloved object, who was not embarrassed by excess of amiability, promptly desired him, when he urged his suit, 'not to make a fool of himself.' ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... fool old Adam was. Had everything his own way; had succeeded in gaining the love of the best-looking girl in the neighborhood, but yet, unsatisfied with his conquest, he had to eat a miserable little apple. Ah, John, if you had been in his place you would not have eaten a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of Absolom wisely observed, they'll be Fools or Knaves to each other to the end of the Chapter. And therefore I am so reasonable in this point, that should be very glad to divide 'em between 'em, and give the Fool to the Tory, and the Knave to the Whigg. For the Tories that will believe no POPISH PLOT, may as justly come under that denomination, as They, that David tells us, said in their Hearts there was no God. And then let the Whiggs that do believe a Popish Plot be the ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... of me. She told me I was a beggar and a fool both, and she spake but the bitter truth. Yet it was bitter when she ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... accuse the other of folly; only I confess to you just this, Ruth Erskine, if you could prove to me that there was a precipice over there, and that we were being carried toward it, and that the hill was safe, I know in my very soul that I should get up and go to that hill. I would not be such a fool as to delay, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... this fellow going and chucking his part, an excellent part, and running off to kill himself? A pumpkin-headed fool! Blows out his brains just two days before the first night. Compels us to replace him and sets us back a week. What an imbecile! A rotten bad egg. But we must do him justice; he could jump, and jump well, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France |
