"Foolhardiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to see why Kennedy was fascinated by a man of Norton's type. Anyone would have been. It was not foolhardiness. It was dogged determination, faith in himself and in his own ability to triumph ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... more foolish and imprudent than we were when we married, as we did, in the year of the old King's death? My son, who has taken some prodigious leaps in the heat of his fox-hunting, says he surveys the gaps and rivers which he crossed so safely over with terror afterwards, and astonishment at his own foolhardiness in making such desperate ventures; and yet there is no more eager sportsman in the two counties than Miles. He loves his amusement so much that he cares for no other. He has broken his collar-bone, and had a hundred tumbles (to his mother's terror); but so has his father ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Greenville accomplished. I wonder how many people have been inspired by this mad story, and how many battles have been actually won for England in the spirit thus engendered. It is only with a measure of habitual foolhardiness that you can be sure, in the common run of men, of courage on a reasonable occasion. An army or a fleet, if it is not led by quixotic fancies, will not be led far by terror of the Provost-Marshal. Even German warfare, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had completed these arrangements and filled the chamber with condensed air by means of the apparatus, it wanted only ten minutes of nine o'clock. During the whole period of my being thus employed, I endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of respiration, and bitterly did I repent the foolhardiness of which I had been guilty in putting off to the last moment a matter of so much importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... a pitched battle against an enemy so superior in numbers, and so formidable in military renown. Their own position on the heights was strong, and offered great advantages to a small defending force against assailing masses. They deemed it mere foolhardiness to descend into the plain to be trampled down by the Asiatic horse, overwhelmed with the archery, or cut to pieces by the invincible veterans of Cambyses and Cyrus. Moreover, Sparta, the great war-state of ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... amiss. To keep the new year up they run away! [He soliloquizes as he begins tearing open the dispatches.] Nor Pitt nor Fox displayed such blundering As glares in this campaign! It is, indeed, Enlarging Folly to Foolhardiness To combat France by land! But how expect Aught that can claim the name of government From Canning, Castlereagh, and Perceval, Caballers all—poor sorry politicians— To whom has fallen the luck of reaping in The harvestings of Pitt's ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... with deepest sympathy, turned to go, she looked round, composed herself, passed her handkerchief over her eyes, and said kindly, "Take care, Mr. Wohlfart, that the foolhardiness of your friend leads you into no fresh danger. My brother would be very sorry that your intercourse with him should prove an ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... as I did, I found myself behind the blacks, and, without waiting to even calculate their numbers or the foolhardiness of my venture, I charged swiftly across the chamber and fell upon them from the rear with ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you say?—when at a word I might have had all the help I needed in guarding the pay-money? No; it wasn't altogether foolhardiness; it was partly weakness. For, twist and turn it as I might, there was always the unforgivable thing at the end: the fact that by calling in help and betraying Dorgan to others, I, once his prison-mate, ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... transplanted from Europe to this stony soil, may end, if you do not seek support and do not humble yourself. You are among evil conditions, alone, elevated, the ground shakes, the sky presages a storm, and the top of your family tree has shown that it draws the thunderbolt. It is not courage, but foolhardiness, to fight alone against all that exists. No one censures the pilot who makes for a port at the first gust of the whirlwind. To stoop as the bullet passes is not cowardly—it is worse to defy it only to fall, never to ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... First—his kindness and freedom from all ostentation, his uncompromising hatred of every form of meanness and injustice,[269] and a fearless courage which, in the eyes of the timid sage of Rotterdam, appeared to fall little short of foolhardiness. Like most of the really earnest reformers, De Berquin was originally a very strict observer of the ordinances of the church, and was unsurpassed in attention to fasts, feast-days, and the mass. It was indignation and contempt for the petty persecution inaugurated by Beda and ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Myndert: "but this foolhardiness will one day bring as pretty a brigantine as ever sailed in the narrow seas, to condemnation; and then will there be rumors abroad, and characters cracked, till every lover of gossip in the Americas shall be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... son of the regiment, corporal of voltigeurs, gay as a lark, rather free and easy with the fair sex, brave to foolhardiness, was capable of shooting a comrade with a laugh if ordered to execute him. With no future before him and not knowing how to employ himself, the prospect of finding an amusing little war in the functions of keeper, attracted ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... with dauntless courage, while the coward may not fear them. Fearlessness of what is in our control, and endurance of what is not, for the sake of true honour, constitute the courageous habit. Its excess is rashness or foolhardiness, the deficiency cowardice. Akin to it, but still spurious, is the courage of which the motive is not Honour but honours or reputation. Spurious also is the courage which arises from the knowledge that the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... encountered this Arctic tyrant, and, when missed from his ship, was discovered with a comrade attacking a large specimen, separated from them by a chasm in the ice. On being reprimanded by his captain for his foolhardiness, "Sir," said the young middy, pouting his lips, as he used to do when excited, "I wished to kill the bear that I might carry ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... press in Where faint the fledge-foot seraphin, Blest Fool! Be ensign of our wars, And shame us all to warriors! Unbanner your bright locks,—advance Girl, their gilded puissance, I' the mystic vaward, and draw on After the lovely gonfalon Us to out-folly the excess Of your sweet foolhardiness; To adventure like intense ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Iles of the Acores this last Sommer betwixt the 'Reuenge' and an Armada of the King of Spaine. The fight had taken place on the preceding 10th of September; the odds against the 'Revenge' were so excessive that Grenville was freely blamed for needless foolhardiness, in facing 15,000 Spaniards with only 100 men. Raleigh wrote his Report to justify the memory of his friend, and doubtless hastened its publication that it might be received as evidence before Sir R. Beville's commission, which ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... by the following pretext for new troubles. The Romans were at war with the Tarentines, who, not being able to go on with the war, nor yet, through the foolhardiness and the viciousness of their popular speakers, to come to terms and give it up, proposed now to make Pyrrhus their general, and engage him in it, as of all the neighboring kings the most at leisure, and the most skillful ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... neighbor's house when you wanted to ask him if he was going to the pioneer supper, and just think of having no "hello girl" to flirt with. The condition seems appalling. But what they lacked in knowledge and in indolent conveniences we beg to announce that they made up in foolhardiness which they called bravery. Well, if it can be called brave to make a needless target of oneself to a bunch of savage Indians, why then they had the proper derivation ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the Latin races were on the rapid down-grade; Spain and Portugal, Italy, Roumania, the South American republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral putrefaction, France a sheer Byzantium. It had been a piece of foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial struggle between the nation that, as Protestant, brought free research in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the Pope and political despotism. Now ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... proper respect for the dangers of the sport should always be present. To take unnecessary risks, such as swimming alone far beyond reach of help or jumping and diving from high places into water of uncertain depth is not bravery; it is simply foolhardiness. A good swimmer is a careful swimmer always. The beginner must first of all try to overcome his natural fear of the water. This is much harder to do than to learn the simple motions of hands or feet that makes us keep afloat and swim. Nothing will help to give us this confidence ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... sidewalk some number of paces distant. There I beheld all eight of them standing at the curbing, giving vent to signs and sounds of approval as a column of troops passed along the boulevard. I started toward them, being minded to chide them severely for their foolhardiness in venturing forth from the confines of the hotel without male protection; but, at this juncture, I was caught unawares in a dense mass of boisterous and excited resident Parisians, who swept up suddenly from behind, enveloping me in ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... vengeance it transcended the murders of Lord Mountmorres and Lord Leitrim. It cannot be denied that Mr. Herbert committed acts of a harsh and overbearing character. He was a turbulent, headstrong man, brave to rashness and foolhardiness, and too fond of proclaiming his contempt for the people by whom he was surrounded. As a magistrate, sitting at Brosna Petty Sessions, he expressed his regret that he was not in command of a force when a riot ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... green clumps of the mountainside, and, pausing to gaze at it, saw it disappear into the thicket of brush. He knew then that Sally had followed him, and why she had done it, and, framing a stern rebuke for the foolhardiness of the venture, he plunged up the acclivity in pursuit. But, as he made his way cautiously, he heard around the shoulder of a mass of piled-up sandstone a shaken sobbing, and, slipping toward it, found the girl bent over with her face in her hands, her slander ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... of such an experience precisely what one wishes to pick out: the imbecile hatred in the Teuton—the perfidy of the British—the efficiency or the blundering of the German—or perchance the foolhardiness of the American, just as his nationalistic ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... black fright on me at that whole company of merciless men, and especially at Ringan, whose word was law to them. Now the worst effect of fear is that it obscures good judgment, and makes a man in desperation do deeds of a foolhardiness from which at other times he would shrink. All I remembered in that moment was that I had to reach Ringan, and that Mercer had told me that the safest plan was to show a bold front. I never remembered that I had also been bidden to follow Shalah, nor did ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... of the Trojans and their allies now followed the counsel of Polydamas but Asius, son of Hyrtacus, would not leave his horses and his esquire behind him; in his foolhardiness he took them on with him towards the ships, nor did he fail to come by his end in consequence. Nevermore was he to return to wind-beaten Ilius, exulting in his chariot and his horses; ere he could do so, death of ill-omened name had overshadowed ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the lee of a hedge in a snow—storm, and the people are training the bull—dogs fore and aft. Why, this is downright, stark staring lunacy, Obed; we shall be smashed like an eggshell, and all hands of us whipped off to Davy, from your cursed foolhardiness." ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... of mind, which in some measure justifies his foolhardiness, Caesar hastily collected his scattered men; seized the persons of the king and his ministers; entrenched himself in the royal residence and adjoining theatre; and gave orders, as there was no time to place in safety the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... "this chest has stood in this room from time immemorial. My father forbade me to break the seal, and declared that he who should lay his hand on it for such a purpose would suffer severely for his foolhardiness. I have, I confess, in former times felt a strong inclination to loosen the seal, but fear has hitherto deterred me; but to-day as I had all my furniture removed from this house, I had this chest also conveyed to my new dwelling; but scarcely had the porter placed it down, when it ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... but within the limits of mortal happiness. But, just as in the matter of absence of fear there is a mean which we call courage, and a defect which we call cowardice, and an excess which is known as foolhardiness; so it is in the case of the love of books. As to the mean, we have seen that it is the virtue of the true book-lover, while the defect constitutes the sin of the Robustious Philistine. But the extreme is found in covetousness, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... companions, who finally cast him out of the town as being unworthy to fight in what they looked upon as a sacred quarrel. As to their courage, there was no occasion to quicken that, for they were as fearless as lions, and the only danger was lest their fiery daring should lead them into foolhardiness. Their desire was to hurl themselves upon the enemy like a horde of Moslem fanatics, and it was no easy matter to drill such hot-headed fellows into the steadiness ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rashness &c adj.; temerity, want of caution, imprudence, indiscretion; overconfidence, presumption, audacity. precipitancy, precipitation; impetuosity; levity; foolhardihood^, foolhardiness; heedlessness, thoughtlessness &c (inattention) 458; carelessness &c (neglect) 460; desperation; Quixotism, knight-errantry; fire eating. gaming, gambling; blind bargain, leap in the dark, leap of faith, fool's paradise; too many eggs ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and was determined to do my own thinking, come what might. For a while this operated against me,—if not always with Mr. Pierpont, certainly with all his immediate personal friends and family; but in time, I believe, he began to like me the better for my presumption, or foolhardiness, in battling the watch with him, whenever he laid down a proposition, with a calm, dictatorial air, which did not strike me at first either as clearly self-evident, or, after a thorough investigation, as indisputably true, so that I do on my conscience believe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... the meaning of their presence and argument. The big man refused to ride any farther. Evidently he had come so far without realizing it. His importunities were for "more head of stock." His scorn was for a "measly little bunch not worth the risk." His anger was for Belllounds's foolhardiness in "leavin' a trail." Belllounds had little to say, and most of that was spoken in a tone too low to be heard. His manner seemed indifferent, even reckless. But he wanted "money." The scar-faced ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... the duties of his dangerous undertaking with the indifference of foolhardiness. The game was played with tolerable ability by both parties; but no emotions, no absence of mind could be discovered on the part of the gentleman. Feet and hands were in motion; still the colonel played as well as usual; he had answers for all Jane's questions, and smiles for his partner; but no ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... would go with my mother, and of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness, but even then not a man would go along with us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol lest we were attacked, and to promise to have horses ready saddled in case we were pursued on our return, while one lad was to ride forward to the doctor's ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on a box to-day," said I; "and I never knew him to go to sleep standing up behind us on a sleigh." But Minora was not to be appeased, and muttered something about seeing no fun in foolhardiness, which shows how alarmed she was, for ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... inquired Mrs. Tompkins, recklessly, the next instant regretting her foolhardiness, and before the eyes of the men, one of whom she had a passion for; the other who had a passion for herself, that she had outlived; and now with quick resolve and latent meaning, knowing the intruder's love for coins, continued: "Even did the Sultan of Turkey fancy me to adorn ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... ridiculous twitter came from a tiny scarlet-crowned songster, as if it were trying to advise and direct the hard-pressed boy. Its solemn, round eyes stared at him, reproving and admonishing him for his foolhardiness. Piang, on his knees, struggling with the current, was unaware of his audience. Gradually he worked the boat around and headed up-stream, straight for the crocodile. Surprised by this sudden change in tactics, it snorted and opened its repulsive jaws. Piang had hoped to catch it in this position, ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... should be brought to account for his contempt of the law. Wade forced his way into the jail and released his foreman at the point of a gun. Even so, I feel sorry for Wade and I am a little apprehensive of the consequences that will probably develop from his foolhardiness." ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... hands shook. Her foolhardiness had placed both their lives in jeopardy. It pleased him to think that she had saved his life—whereas in strictest truth she had only added ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... but for the wonderful cunning and shrewd courage of Simpson, who had kept close to the heels of the flying horse. It was when the crisis came—when the Apaches were closing around the fugitive, and it seemed inevitable that he should reap the natural reward of his own foolhardiness that Sut had acted. When the warriors were confident of their success, he discharged his rifle with marvelous quickness, and with a more important result than the mere tumbling over of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... officers who were to have the charge of the boats. He would not trust any of the midshipmen on so dangerous a service. He said that he had known so many occasions in which their rashness and foolhardiness had spoilt an expedition; he therefore appointed Mr Phillott, the first lieutenant, to the launch; O'Brien to the yawl; the master to the first, and Mr Chucks, the boatswain, to the second cutter. Mr Chucks was much pleased ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... these things without sufficient reason is foolhardiness. To expose ourselves needlessly to disease; to put ourselves in the range of a cannon, to jump into the stream, with no worthy end in view, or for the very shallow reason of showing off how brave we can be, is folly and madness. Doing such things ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... about fit for a summer excursion on Long Island Sound. What if his party should all perish, or be stranded helpless on these strange coasts, before any news of their success should reach the ears of friends in Europe! Then the name of Columbus would serve as a by-word for foolhardiness, and his mysterious fate would simply deter other expeditions from following in the same course. Obviously the first necessity of the situation was to return to Spain immediately and report what had already been ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... save something, but one effort drove him back, realizing the foolhardiness of repeating the experiment. The building and its ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... wallachized Hungarian lady, whom he married for her wealth. It was not wonderful, therefore, if the noble baron possessed the qualities of five distinct races. Thus he had something of the voluptuousness of the Turk, the ostentation of the Hindu, the flightiness of the Pole, the foolhardiness of the Hungarian, and ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... Frenchman's laconic reply to the summons to surrender. He was writing history, and no milk-and-water euphemism could have expressed Cambronne's defiance and contempt. Of course John Bull pitilessly shot to death that heroic fragment of the Old Guard, which forgot in its supreme hour that while foolhardiness may be magnificent, it is not war. I would have put a cordon of soldiers about that pathetic remnant of Napoleon's greatness and held it there to this good day rather than have plowed it down as a farmer plows jimson weeds into a pile of compost; but John Bull is ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... together, and wore his brain out devising shifts which might keep him away from the walls. But Richard, for this present whim of his, chose out a companion devil as heedless as himself, Mercadet namely, his brown Gascon captain, of like proportions, like mettle, like foolhardiness; and with him made the daily round, never omitting an exchange of grim banter with Saint-Pol. It was terrible to see him, without helm on his head, or reason in it, canter ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... made of it; it is as I said; General Yozarro is determined you shall remain here for some time to come and he gives no more thought to the foolhardiness of his action than if he were a child too young ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... come to any more, he might pull through all right. Thus once again was illustrated the truth of the old saying that "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." How many lives are lost through ignorance and foolhardiness! ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... fabric of society seems on the whole established and secured against external dangers, it is this fear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives of moral valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness, astuteness, rapacity, and love of power, which up till then had not only to be honoured from the point of view of general utility—under other names, of course, than those here given—but had to be ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... right shoulder as a knife went home, the voice of Hall crying, "Make for the door—the door," and the great yell of Captain Black above the others. His word, no doubt, saved us from greater harm; for when I had thought that my foolhardiness had undone us, and that we should never leave the place alive, I found myself in the Rue Joubert with Hall at my side, he torn and bleeding as I was, but ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... been wonderfully lucky. The foolhardiness with which he had exposed his life and that of his friends by wandering about the streets of Paris at this hour without any attempt at disguise, though carrying one under his arm, had not met with the untoward ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... no man knows how he will feel and behave under fire, until he has been under fire, so no regiment or battalion knows. The men were razor-keen for action, but that very keenness might lead them into a rashness, a foolhardiness, which would precipitate action. The Colonel believed they would stand and fight to the last gasp and die to the last man rather than yield a yard of their trench. He believed that of them even as he believed it of himself—but he did not know it of them any more than he knew ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... Nature is not conquered yet. Ocean has still a strength beyond ours. Ships are not unsinkable; and Death will still take his toll of bold men's lives in the future as he has done in the past. We know that cowardice costs more than courage, but it is not so tragically costly as blind foolhardiness. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... you plainly if you don't accept my scheme and work to it religiously I'm out of the deal absolutely. I'm not going to risk my liberty because of other people's foolhardiness. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... though, perhaps, I was not endowed by nature with her good qualities. Even with her I was of a violent disposition, but my violence was sullen and suppressed. I was blind and brutal in anger, nervous even to cowardice at the approach of danger, daring almost to foolhardiness when hand to hand with it—that is to say, at once timid and brave from my love of life. My obstinacy was revolting; yet my mother alone could conquer me; and without attempting to reason, for my mind developed very slowly, I used to obey her as if by a sort of magnetic necessity. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Rome, and from there to Naples, with the foolhardiness of the innocent, employing Spanish and Catalan words to reinforce his scanty Italian vocabulary acquired at the opera. The only positive information that guided him on his quest of adventure was the name of the albergo on the shore of S. Lucia which ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to the confluence of the rivulet Allia with the Tiber, the armies met, and a battle took place on the 18th July, 364. Even now they went into battle—not as against an army, but as against freebooters—with arrogance and foolhardiness and under inexperienced leaders, Camillus having in consequence of the dissensions of the orders withdrawn from taking part in affairs. Those against whom they were to fight were but barbarians; what need was there of a camp, or of securing a retreat? These barbarians, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... said I would go with my mother; and of course they all cried out at our foolhardiness; but even then not a man would go along with us. All they would do was to give me a loaded pistol, lest we were attacked; and to promise to have horses ready saddled, in case we were pursued on our return; while ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hearing that, his three brothers and all the Brahmanas and the renowned Draupadi too were covered with shame. And all those excellent Brahmanas desiring the welfare of the Pandavas, admonished Bhima for his foolhardiness, telling him not to attempt such things again, and the Pandavas too were greatly pleased at seeing the mighty Bhima out of danger, and continued to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the discrimination between real courage and mere foolhardiness or recklessness. There are some vocations which require courage. There are others which require an element of recklessness. It requires courage to drive the locomotive of a railroad train at a speed of eighty miles an hour, but it also requires caution, prudence, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... of professions should have fallen so low. As The Hopper imperturbably buttoned his coat and walked toward the door, Humpy set his back against it in a last attempt to save his friend from his own foolhardiness. ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... most reckless foolhardiness to go on a fathom further, but the first lieutenant seemed to know the bottom as though it were a peaceful lane in a New England countryside, and after the Union, the Coast Guard cutter crept warily. Even the boatswain muttered under ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... slip, and she would have cracked like a nutshell against those adamantine walls. But to get into the harbour it was the only way, and as the skipper said afterwards, when I remonstrated on his apparent foolhardiness, "Needs must, when ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... all things considered, the potter has produced a tolerable pot, and we may write down his fault of extreme foolhardiness as venial. What, however, Mr. CONRAD himself thought of the rehearsals, if he attended them—but perhaps we need ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... a sallow man with yellow whiskers, turned green with apprehension. Not so Placidia. From amongst her chaotic hand-baggage she extracted walnuts and mandarin oranges, and began eating with an appetite that was a direct challenge to the Channel. Bravery or foolhardiness could go ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... one he remembered. The man he had known had been vividly alive, care-free and animated; one who had jested alike at life and death with an indifferent laugh, but one who though careless of danger even to the extent of foolhardiness had never given any indication of a desire to quit a life that was obviously easy and attractive. But this man was different, grave and abrupt of speech, with an air of tired suffering, and a grim purposefulness in his determination to ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... that, not until long afterwards, was the Emperor in the Syrian capital. [392:3] In the "Acts," Ignatius is described as presenting himself before his sovereign of his own accord, to proclaim his Christianity—a piece of foolhardiness for which it is difficult to discover any reasonable apology. The report of the interview between Ignatius and Trajan, as given in this document, would, if believed, abundantly warrant the conclusion that the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... thin procession through narrowed lids. In theory he condemned equally the blind obstinacy of the authorities, who went on tightening the screw, and the foolhardiness of the men. But—well, he could not get his eye to shirk one of the screaming banners and placards: "Down with Despotism!" "Who so base as be a Slave!" by means of which the diggers sought to inflame popular indignation. "If only honest ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... and want of faith. Each one must judge for himself in such a matter. Faith in this connection may easily degenerate into foolhardiness. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... thoroughly for her foolhardiness in going into her father's room. He had been the family physician ever since she was born, knew her well; and took the privilege of scolding when he liked. Starr meekly succumbed. There was just one thing she would not do, and that was to go away out of the house while her father ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... will it do for you to go and get trapped too? It's different with you. They've got it in for you down there. It's just foolhardiness for you to go back," she ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... eyelids, and any wound or scratch of the skin—a resistance which is not shown by many savage races—they yet allow house-flies to swarm in their dwellings, to run about and sample their food, with an indifference which is, when the truth is known, truly horrible in its fatuity and foolhardiness. For the fact is that the feet and proboscis of the common house-fly are covered with microbes of all sorts, picked up by his explorations upon every kind of filth. At every step which he takes he plants a few dozen microbes, which include those of infantile diarrhoea, typhoid, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester |
