"Foolish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cutter felt very foolish when we found that we had lost so good a chance of taking one of the richest prizes we were ever likely to fall in with. However, revenue officers must have all their seven senses wide awake to compass the artful dodges of determined smugglers. After that, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... discuss who these are. We acknowledge that some are discreet, some foolish, and that some ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... foolish of me,' said Louisa, sitting down, and taking out her pocket-handkerchief, 'but ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... at once, senor," he went on to Bertie, "and help your brother, so that they may not get sight of you. However, I am afraid they know how many we are. It was foolish to light that fire yesterday evening, I expect they were somewhere near and caught sight of us, and no doubt one of them crept quietly down to find out what our force was. Seeing there were but four ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... of Napoleon with regard to the squadrons, and he dared not give instructions to Villeneuve. Villeneuve divined what his friend hid from him. "The sailors of Paris and the departments will be very unworthy and very foolish if they cast a stone at me," wrote he to Decres. "They will have themselves prepared the condemnation which will strike them later on. Let them come on board the squadrons, and they will see against what elements ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... the eye, that I may see him;' and another, 'Give me the tooth, that I may bite him.' But Perseus, when he saw that they were foolish and proud, and did not love the children of men, left off pitying them, and said to himself, 'Hungry men must needs be hasty; if I stay making many words here, I shall be starved.' Then he stepped close to them, ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... and amusement. But I ask you, what prudent man among you would deposit his money in it, or invest in its stock? And why would you not? Because you would think that this is not sensible men's business, but foolish boys' play; that such management would necessarily result in reckless waste and dishonesty, and tend to land many of the bank's officers in Canada, and not a few of its depositors or investors in the poor-house. Such would be your judgment, and in pronouncing it you would at ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... "She is better, thank Heaven! John Ashford," he continued humbly, "I have come to beg your forgiveness for the pain we have caused you. I knew my girl to be a good girl, although she had once been so foolish. I knew she would make you a true loving wife, in spite of her sin. It was I who overcame her scruples, and bade her marry you. I did it for the best. I did it that she might be happy; for I knew how she loved you, and she so feared to lose your love and respect. She tells me you ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... time, after making seven hundred and fifty dollars in one month. I know men who would give that amount to dine with me." It was a foolish brag, but Miss De Voe felt that her usual means of inspiring respect were ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... half. Blair—it was his first year on the team—was playing full-back. On a first down he punted the ball a long and rather low kick into Amherst's territory. Joel bowled over an Amherst end who was foolish enough to get in the way and started down the field like an Indian warrior on the war path. The Harwell ends were a little in advance but off to the sides, and Joel sprinted hard and easily passed them both. Kingdon, the right half, gave him a ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... nearly a year and a half ago that Jurgis had met Ona, at a horse fair a hundred miles from home. Jurgis had never expected to get married—he had laughed at it as a foolish trap for a man to walk into; but here, without ever having spoken a word to her, with no more than the exchange of half a dozen smiles, he found himself, purple in the face with embarrassment and terror, asking her parents to sell her to him for his wife—and offering his father's two ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... God-fearing Southern man and woman. A woman is all I am and I may be short-sighted, narrow, and foolish, but—Oh, Colonel Greenleaf, you shouldn't have let Doctor Sevier take this burden for you. It's ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... on the appearance of Sir Walter's first publication, the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," she had taken a fit of enthusiasm, and written to him; and, when in the cold paroxysm, and inclined to think she had done something foolish, had received from Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, a characteristically warm-hearted reply. She experienced much kindness at his hands ever after; and when she herself became an author, she dedicated her book to him. He now and then procured boarders for her; and ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... very much, and he thought how foolish it was to waste more time in looking for the hermits in this way, so he decided to go at once to the shrine of Jofuku, who is worshiped as the patron god of the hermits in the south ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... words. "Oh, no," she cried quickly. "How can you speak like that? How can you say anything so wrong, so untrue, so foolish? To be celibate is a very great misfortune even for a woman; for a man it is impossible, it is cruel, it is wicked. I endure it myself, for my child's sake, and because I find it hard to discover the help meet for me; or because, when discovered, he refuses to accept me in the ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... regretted that I had not damned myself with you that we might die together, so tightly clasped that we must needs be buried together also. And to think that such a terrible warning was of no avail! I was blind and foolish; and now you are again stricken, again being taken from my love. Ah! my wretched pride, my ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... have to keep my eyes open," thought Joe. "After all, though, maybe nothing will happen. And yet I have a feeling as if something would. It's foolish, I know,, but——" ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... the people in the United States, and I cannot express how much I admire their experience and their good sense. An American should never be allowed to speak of Europe; for he will then probably display a vast deal of presumption and very foolish pride. He will take up with those crude and vague notions which are so useful to the ignorant all over the world. But if you question him respecting his own country, the cloud which dimmed his intelligence will immediately disperse; his language will become ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... committed. All seems well, the troops are devoted to me, and will fight against whomsoever I bid them. By lavish gifts and favours I have attached all my generals firmly to me, and soon this ungrateful emperor shall feel how rash and foolish he has been to insult the man to whom alone he owes it that he was not long ago a fugitive and an exile, with the Swedes victorious masters of his capital ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... Though one should swear by the altar of God, his oath could be annulled; but if he vowed by the corban gift or by the gold upon the altar,[1136] his obligation was imperative. To what depths of unreason and hopeless depravity had men fallen, how sinfully foolish and how wilfully blind were they, who saw not that the temple was greater than its gold, and the altar than the gift that lay upon it! In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord had said "Swear not at all";[1137] but upon such as would not live according to that higher law, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy!—I see the business. Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: All with me's meet that I ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... courtesy and amiability. He was a great favourite with the English Boundary Commission, and in his turn remembers with much pleasure his association with them. Half a dozen times, when conversation flagged, he raised his clasped hands and said "Warry Ching, ching!" and I knew that this was his foolish heathen way of sending greeting to the Chinese adviser of the Government of Burma. The Shan dialect is quite distinct from the Chinese, but all the princes or princelets dress in Chinese fashion and learn Mandarin, and it was of course ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... hero whom everybody admired. Lillian Arnold was in the booth, dividing her attention between filling glasses and entertaining four men. She gave Pocahontas a cool bow and cast a look at Smith which the Freshman interpreted "What are you doing with her?" At the same moment Lillian thought of a foolish confidence she had made to the dig when they were room-mates. Jack, however, was describing to Hannah the recent rush and the glory of her class, and Lillian's glances were lost upon him. The lemonade finished, ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... Marie Louise and the consequent connection with the imperial family of Austria had been for the former Corsican officer, become Emperor of the French. Since, now, a lady who belonged to one of these great families was disposed to marry him, it would have been foolish to put obstacles in the way; it was necessary to act with despatch; ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... becoming absolutely fatal. Madame Romedek was rather amusing. She tried to be the lady—which, as she doesn't know how, and only succeeds in being impossibly stupid, must have bored the men on each side of her tremendously. That's where foolish women of that sort spoil their own game. If they would make the best of the bargain, and be frankly a common cocotte gone right, they would certainly be more amusing, and might have something like success, at ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... Our Own Times, by Justin McCarthy, might be read in connection with it. The historical writings of Motley and Prescott are also standard works of the greatest value. If you prefer biography, the "English Men of Letters Series" will give you a complete outline of English literature. It would be foolish for you to buy books which would simply amuse you for a short time, and we trust you will select wisely, and lay a solid foundation ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Ephraim was as foolish as are most men in sight of a damsel in distress. He made no impartial inquiry into the real cause of trouble; he did not seek Justice in her place of hiding. He stepped to his mother's side, stern and determined, remembering only that she was often unwise, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... stamped one foot down upon the deck in his excitement. "Why, you are as foolish as ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... tools were now worn out or broken; they could no longer get air to work, or keep a light in the horrible pit, which was reeking with cold mud; in short, any attempt at further progress with the utensils at hand was foolish. ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... it, and in Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence of this remarkable English breed. I found there the spirit of the wanderlust which has lured Albion's sons across the zones; and I found there the colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English into foolish squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness and stubbornness which have brought them blindly through to empire and greatness; and likewise I found that vast, incomprehensible patience ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... from Irene, which was full of pleasant things that were happening to her; there was a great deal about her cousin Will, as she called him. At the end she had written, "Tell Pen I don't want she should be foolish." "There!" said Mrs. Lapham. "I guess it's going to come out right, all round;" and it seemed as if even the Colonel's difficulties were past. "When your father gets through this, Pen," she asked ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his first Mandarin, said to him: "Son of Heaven, you make a mistake." To which the Emperor replied: "Kouang, you are foolish." ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... cotton shirts clung to our backs as wet with sweat as the bathing-suits of swimmers, and remained so all the long, sweltering days. In mowing and cradling, the most exhausting of all the farm work, I made matters worse by foolish ambition in keeping ahead of the hired men. Never a warning word was spoken of the dangers of over-work. On the contrary, even when sick we were held to our tasks as long as we could stand. Once in harvest-time I had the mumps and was unable to swallow any food except ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... search,(164)—"in the old copies."(165) No doubt, Origen's strange fancy must have been even unintelligible to Basil when first he met with it. In plain terms, it sounds to this day incredibly foolish,—when read apart from the mutilated text which alone suggested it to Origen's fervid imagination.—But what there is in all this to induce us to suspect that Origen's reading was after all the right one, and ours the wrong, I profess myself wholly at a loss to discover. ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... gives you any pleasure to ask foolish questions. I think the ocean telegraph-wire ought to be laid and will be laid, but I don't know that you have any right to ask me to go and lay it. But, for that matter, I have heard a good deal of Scripture depolarized in and out of the pulpit. I heard the Rev. Mr. F. once depolarize the story ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the town he would hear the proclamation read, see it posted up no doubt on every public building, and realize that she had been foolish enough to follow him, that she was a prisoner and that he could do nothing to ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... restrain her tears. It appears to me, that she has the talent (ESPRIT) and the graces of your House; and that especially she is more attached to you than to her Husband [I should think so!]. She returns, I believe, to Baireuth,—[No Mother, no Father there now: foolish Uncle of Anspath died long ago, "3d August, 1757:" Aunt Dowager of Anspach gone to Erlangen, I hope, to Feuchtwang, Schwabach or Schwaningen, or some Widow's-Mansion "WITTWENSITZ" of her own; [Lived, finally at Schwaningen, in sight of such vicissitudes and follies round ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... reckon that lets you out. When I'm lookin' for advice from women an' kids mebbe I'll call on you an' Betty, but if I don't you'll understand that I'm followin' my own trail. You've got away with one call because—well, because I was fool enough to let you. Mebbe another time I won't feel so foolish." ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... gloomy, mad thoughts went ever circling in his mind. "She is alive; she is here," he whispered to himself with constantly recurring amazement. He felt that he had lost Liza. Wrath seemed to suffocate him. The blow had too suddenly descended upon him. How could he have so readily believed the foolish gossip of a feuilleton, a mere scrap of paper? "But if I had not believed it," he thought, "what would have been the difference? I should not have known that Liza loves me. She would not have known it herself." He ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... eyes and fixed them full upon her; then, without saying one word, he spread his white wings and flew out of the window. Psyche, in vain endeavoring to follow him, fell from the window to the ground. Cupid, beholding her as she lay in the dust, stopped his flight for an instant and said, "O foolish Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After having disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head? But go; return to your sisters, whose advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave you ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... with Johnny and his father. The sad-faced man clearly desired to avoid me, answering my nod with a cold embarrassment, and clutching Johnny's hand whenever the child called "Good-morning!" to me cordially. I fancied him ashamed of his foolish falsehood; and I, on my side, was angry because of it. The pair were for ever strolling backwards and forwards on deck, or resting beneath the awning on the poop, and talking—always talking. I fancied the boy was delicate; he certainly had a bad cough during the first ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... got as far as the corner and stood beside a lamp post, pretending to be waiting for a car. The street lights were reflected in perpendicular, wavy-yellow ribbons on the wet asphalt, and I stood staring with foolish intentness at this phenomenon, wondering how a painter would get the effect in oils. Again I was walking back towards the hall, combating the acknowledgment to myself that I had a plan, a plan that I did not for a moment believe I would carry out. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at the physical sciences. To sneer at them were just as foolish as to sneer at religion. What we could do on this expedition in a "scientific" way we did laboriously and zealously. We would never have thought of attempting the ascent of the mountain without bringing back whatever ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... my foolish mind for Krishna, For Krishna—without me—lusting still for the herd-girls. Seeing only the good in his nature, what shall I do? Agitated I feel no anger. Pleased without cause, ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... man go to pieces as Benson's doing. Clarke's ruining the fellow. He must have got two or three thousand dollars out of him, one way or another, and isn't satisfied with that. Lent him money on mortgage to start a foolish stock-raising speculation, and keeps him well supplied with drink. The fellow's weak, but he has ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... is foolish," he said, "so he threw the nioka (snake) into the thundering water, but Kali knows that nioka is good; so he will search for it in the thundering waters, and bake it as Kali is wise—and is ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... foolish little girl!" Elsie said, putting her arms around her, "why should you grieve so? Ned will soon be at home again, if all goes well. He is not very far away, and if you should be taken ill, or need him very much ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... the girl, "you will be the more in the line of your duty, which allows not much sleep o' nights. You are but a silly, petulant boy for all your fine captaincy. I wish it had been Landless Jock. He would never have vexed me with foolish questions ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... will be sugared. Good Jove, what a pretty foolish thing it is to be a poet! but, hark you, sweet Cytheris, could they not possibly leave out my husband? methinks a body's husband does not so well at court; a body's friend, or so—but, husband! 'tis like your clog ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... said Rosemary, with a forced laugh. She was endeavouring to brush her mood away as though it were an annoying cobweb. "I've grown foolish over ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... of artillery, to Westminster, where a new vault had been prepared in the noble abbey. The tears of a nation made it hallowed ground. A prince, of whom the epigram declares that, if he never said a foolish thing, he never did a wise one—saw fit to disturb the hero's grave, drag out the embalmed body, and cast it into a pit in the abbey-yard. One of Charles Stuart's most witless performances! For Blake is not to be confounded—though the Merry Monarch thought otherwise—with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... intensified by the skeleton arms of a snow-crowned bluff. The shelter of trees is no longer a shelter against the wind, which now comes shrieking through the leafless branches and drives out any benighted creature foolish enough to seek its protection against the winter storm. But in winter the crossroads ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... "How foolish it would be of the violin and the bow, were they to be vain in their performance! And yet this is what so often we of the human species are. Poets, artists, those who make discoveries in science, military and naval commanders -we are all proud ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... foolish. Thanks awfully; I know you mean it. But one can't take other people's burdens, you know. We are all saddled separately, and—and all we can do is to pretend we aren't saddled at all, and make grimaces and pretend to enjoy ourselves. Do pretend—we ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... go to Toronto for a day," said Ranald; "the boys are foolish enough to get up a kind of dinner at the Albert, and besides," he added, resolutely, "I want ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... in morals, free from vice, no dandy, a quiet, bookish, self-denying mortal, was yet, when he took holy orders and quitted his chambers at Cambridge, as much in debt as many a scamp of his college. He had been, perhaps, a little foolish and fanciful in the article of books, and had committed a serious indiscretion in the matter of a carved oak bookcase; and, worse still, he had published a slender volume of poems, and a bulkier tome of essays, scholastic and theologic, both which ventures, notwithstanding their merits, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... explain, on behalf of the lady, that when she first joined me she had no other view than that of seeing the banks of the Jordan in that guise which she had chosen to assume, in order to escape from the solemnity and austerity of a disagreeable relative. She had been very foolish, and that was all. I take it that she had first left her uncle at Constantinople, but on this point I never got certain information. Afterwards, while we were travelling together, the idea had come upon her, that she might go on as far as Alexandria with ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... talking to him; and, if you do, it must be under promise of secrecy, or I will not consent to it. Jack, Jack, recollect that my poor boy was hanged from my fault. Do you think I will hang another? Oh, no. Perhaps this very man had a foolish wicked mother, like me, and has, like my boy, been led into guilt. Jack, you must do as I wish—you ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the necessity, though they quite agree as to the disagreeable nature of the visit;—gentlemen when so engaged are usually somewhat gravelled at finding nothing to say to their learned friends; they generally talk a little politics, a little weather, ask some few foolish questions about their suit, and then withdraw, having passed half an hour in a small dingy waiting-room, in company with some junior assistant-clerk, and ten minutes with the members of the firm; the business is then over for which the ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... cultivate the vine." After all, my dear philosopher, a little longer, and I do not know whether all these books will be necessary, and whether man will not have enough sense to comprehend by himself that three do not make one, and that bread is not God. The enemies of reason are playing a very foolish part at this moment, and I believe that we can say as in ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... of the dislike which an Englishman naturally feels at the idea of Slavery. But soon a sentiment of great admiration for the gallantry and determination of the Southerners, together with the unhappy contrast afforded by the foolish bullying conduct of the Northerners, caused a complete revulsion in my feelings, and I was unable to repress a strong wish to go to America and see something of this ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... unexpected fright, often produces epileptic fits, and other dangerous disorders. Many young people have lost their lives or their senses by the foolish attempts of producing violent alarm, and the mind has been thrown into such disorders as never again to act with regularity. A settled dread and anxiety not only dispose the body to diseases, but often render ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... well-meaning Gentleman took occasion, at another time, to bring together such of his Friends as were addicted to a foolish habitual Custom of Swearing. In order to shew the Absurdity of the Practice, he had recourse to the Invention above mentioned, having placed an Amanuensis in a private part of the Room. After the second Bottle, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... he made his plans, that the man's heart and soul, his life, physical and spiritual, were involved—well he was sorry. It simply proved how foolish it was to allow your heart and soul to ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... Berg. True; for a foolish word may be spoken in Latin as well as in the vulgar tongue; and I have seen silly literati, tedious pedants, and babblers in the vernacular, who were enough to plague one to death with their scraps ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... London correspondent of the "New York Tribune,'' and, at present, as the New York correspondent of the London "Times,'' having one day announced to some of us,—with a very round expletive,—that he would answer no more such foolish questions, the tutor soon discovered his recalcitrancy, and thenceforward plied him with such questions and nothing else. S—— always answered that he was not prepared on them; with the result that at the Junior Exhibition he received no place ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... muscles which enable the particles to stick together; and I say stolen from your muscles, because they are the gluten which you ought to have eaten. I hope the thought of this may cure you of a foolish habit, which is sometimes far from agreeable to ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... Poets' Corner. We are all familiarly acquainted with it beforehand. We are all ready for "O rare Ben Jonson!" as we stand over the place where he was planted standing upright, as if he had been dropped into a post-hole. We remember too well the foolish and flippant mockery of Gay's "Life is a Jest." If I were dean of the cathedral, I should be tempted to alter the J to a G. Then we could read it without contempt; for life is a gest, an achievement,—or ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Makoma The Magic Mirror Story of the King who would see Paradise How Isuro the Rabbit tricked Gudu Ian, the Soldier's Son The Fox and the Wolf How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon The Ugly Duckling The Two Caskets The Goldsmith's Fortune The Enchanted Wreath The Foolish Weaver The Clever Cat The Story of Manus Pinkel the Thief The Adventures of a Jackal The Adventures of the Jachal's Eldest Son The Adventures of the Younger Son of the Jackal The Three Treasures of the Giants The Rover of the Plain The White Doe The Girl Fish The Owl and the Eagle The Frog ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... displeased to discover that her beauty was not unrivaled, she was filled with intense joy. Her heart was beating and throbbing with love for another, and in that instant Ju-Kiouan's whole life was changed. It was foolish in her to fall violently in love with a reflection, of whose reality she knew nothing, but after all she was only acting like nearly all young girls who take a husband for his white teeth or his curly hair, knowing nothing whatever of ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... house is still the resort of men, who know how to appreciate wit and elegance: and the Queen, though without a throne, is not less an object of the respect and homage of all Paris."—"She did a very foolish thing, in exhibiting herself as a spectacle before the tribunals. They who advised her to it were blockheads. Why, too, did she go and demand the title of duchess?"—"She, Sire, did not demand it, it was the Emperor Alexander...."—"No matter, she ought not to have ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... doesn't know enough to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters—why in the world do they call women by their last names?—Peters, she's the maid, says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but I wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body like me, for two dollars ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... has been sent to me, Joe," continued the deacon. "I'm ready to pay it over to you when you want it, but I hope you won't spend it foolish." ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... two months in the north of Sahalin. I was received by the local administration very amicably, though Galkin had not written a single word about me. Neither Galkin nor the Baroness V., nor any of the other genii I was so foolish as to appeal to for help, turned out of the slightest use to me; I had to ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... utterly changed for the worse. She became not only very merry and lively, but quite forsook loom and needle, giving up her nights and days to play and idleness; no silly lover could have been more foolish than she. The Sun-king, in great wrath at all this, concluded that the husband was the cause of it, and determined to separate the couple. So he ordered him to remove to the other side of the river of stars, and told him that ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... at the sage advice of our fathers, it is too plain that our present expensive habits are productive of much domestic unhappiness, and injurious to public prosperity. Our wealthy people copy all the foolish and extravagant caprice of European fashion, without considering that we have not their laws of inheritance among us; and that our frequent changes of policy render property far more precarious here than in the old world. However, it is not to the rich I would ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... are becoming as bad as Sir Keith Macleod himself!" said the other. "He does not sleep. He talks to himself. You will become like that if you pay attention to foolish ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... go trying to make a hero out of me," said Walter, hotly, "I won't have it. I only did what anyone would have done, and I made a whole lot of foolish ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... you gone silly? [THOMAS is silent.] We know very well what we are—discontented dogs—never satisfied. What did the Chairman tell me up in London? That I did n't know what I was talking about. I was a foolish, uneducated man, that knew nothing of the wants of the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and forgotten speeches made by Sir Julian to his constituents not many years ago, in which the value of some of our Colonial possessions, particularly certain West Indian islands, was decried in a medley of pomposity, ignorance and amazingly cheap humour. The extracts given sounded weak and foolish enough, taken by themselves, but the writer of the letter had interlarded them with comments of his own, which sparkled with an ironical brilliance that was Cervantes-like in its polished cruelty. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... fourteen pounds, and took up the balance of my holiday stock. Rather foolish I know you will say, but after all we ought to stand by each other. And it was worth it. Honestly, it was worth it! That chap became the most animated creature in Huntingdonshire when the arrangement was concluded. He opened the piano and sang song after ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... a divorce from a young Washington woman, who was a clerk in the Treasury Department when he married her. The irascible, jealous old man magnified trifling circumstances into startling facts, and deliberately attempted to brand his young wife with infamy. She may have been foolish, she may have said or done what was not wise, but those who knew her well asserted that she had given no cause for the terrible accusations brought against her by the man who persuaded her to become his wife, and who proved the truth ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... admitted. "On the other hand, Walter, the very smartest criminal will do some foolish little thing, enough to ruin the most careful plans and preparations." He turned to McGroarty. "Who rode in ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... rather foolish, but he did not reply. The truth is, like almost all other children, who take an interest in reading, he was sometimes a little vain of his knowledge; and in this case, instead of listening attentively, and endeavoring to learn something new from ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott
... out his hand. "Don't let us be foolish, doctor. If you should find yourself terribly deceived, and I should have been the means of proving it, promise me that you will not be angry ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... equanimity, and not overburden your soul, in addition to the misfortune itself, with the conviction that something monstrous has befallen you? I remember how much that pleased me the first time I heard it. For your own sake—for the sake of us all—cease this foolish raving, and do not merely call yourself a skeptic—be one; control the passion that is rending you. For love of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... him idle, pushed her cold nose into his hand. Trudchen just now was feeling clever and important. Was she not the mother of the five most wonderful puppies in all Saxony? They swarmed about his legs, pressing him with their little foolish heads. Ulrich stooped and picked up one in each big hand. But this causing jealousy and heartburning, laughing, he lay down upon a log. Then the whole five stormed over him, biting his hair, trampling with their clumsy paws upon his face; till suddenly they raced off in a body to attack a floating ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome
... Brigade was to "leap frog" them and push on to Haynecourt and beyond. I was glad that I had come provided for the expedition, and bidding good-bye to General Thacker, whose parting injunction was not to do anything foolish, I got out of the quarry and made my way down the hill towards Inchy. A railway bridge which crossed the road near me was a constant mark for German shells, and it was well to avoid it. An officer met me and asked where ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... man, John," said my sister Ruth. "You're worse than foolish. A man never gets any happiness by ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... strait horizon dreary? Is thy foolish fancy chill? Change the feet that have grown weary For ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... awful night events marched as rapidly as the flames, and the experience of years was crowded into hours, and that of hours into moments), Christine had sought as best she could to obey Dennis's directions, but she was sadly helpless, having been trained to a foolish dependence on her maid. She had accomplished but little when she heard a heavy step in the room. Looking up, she saw a strange man regarding her with an ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the fireman, "and two worse unhung rascals never walked. They came about you. Say, Mr. Fairbanks," continued Fogg excitedly, "It wasn't so bad tackling me as a sort of comrade, considering that I had been foolish enough to train with them once, but when they mentioned you—I went wild. You—after what you've done ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... children and the children of Pandu. My own sons were prone to wilfulness and despised me because I am old. Blind as I am, because of my miserable plight and through paternal affection, I bore it all. I was foolish alter the thoughtless Duryodhana ever growing in folly. Having been a spectator of the riches of the mighty sons of Pandu, my son was derided for his awkwardness while ascending the hall. Unable to bear it all and unable himself ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... said, "Send me with a letter that shall be as keen as a sword and a message like a thunder-cloud." So the King sent for a scribe, who, making the point of his reed as fine as an arrowhead, wrote thus: "These are foolish words, and do not become a man of sense. Put away your arrogance, and be obedient to my words. If you refuse, I will bring such an army against you as shall cover your land from one sea to the other; and the ghost of the White Genius shall ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Affairs, and he treated the envoys with a mixture of menace and cajolery. It was a part of his tactics to sever the Republican member, Gerry, from his Federalist colleagues. Gerry was weak enough to be caught by Talleyrand's snare, and he was foolish enough to attribute the remonstrances of his colleagues to vanity. "They were wounded," he wrote, "by the manner in which they had been treated by the Government of France, and the difference which had been used in respect to me." Gerry's conduct served to weaken and delay the negotiations, ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... always laughed at my dreams, but I have a strange feeling whenever I think of this. Oh, Elspie, you can't tell how sweet it was! And so I should like to call my baby Olive, for the sake of the beautiful angel. It may be foolish—but 'tis a fancy of mine. Olive Rothesay! It sounds well, and Olive Rothesay ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... of my life,—to see the everlasting snows; to climb those grand, solemn mountains; to cross the great passes that one reads of in the travel books. Now at last you have made me envious. Are you going alone? But of course that is a foolish question. You intend to join others ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... overthrown chair and put it in its place, then he went after Czipra and a minute later brought her back on his arm into the dining-room, with an exceedingly humorous expression, and a courtesy worthy of a Spanish grandee, which the poor foolish gypsy girl did ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... grew more attached to her every day. Sometimes after spending long hours with her, a fancy for a retired life and domestic happiness would seize me. Gentlemen with brains are privileged to commit foolish acts at times, and I really do not know what I might have ended in doing, had I not been preserved from the danger in an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... during the summer of 1828, with a private tutor (a very dull man) to Barmouth, but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the very early steps in algebra. This impatience was very foolish, and in after years I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to have an extra ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... morning, on swift, high-bred horses, they rode side by side along the river's towering bluff and laughed in sheer joy at their foolish happiness. In the waning afternoon, hand in hand, they walked the sunlit fields and paused at dusk to hear the songs of slaves. The happiness of lovers is contagious. It sets the hearts of slaves ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... they might still be considered slaves; on the other hand, if they took to the high road, they might be considered vagrants. If one returned from a Federal camp to claim his wife and children, he might be driven away. "Freedom cried out," and undoubtedly some individuals did foolish things; but serious crime was noticeably absent. On the whole the race bore the blessing of emancipation with remarkable good sense and temper. Returning soldiers paraded, there were some meetings and processions, sometimes a little regalia—and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... abominable maxim, divide et impera. It was to divide the Americans, and dissolve their generous union in defence of their rights and liberties; but, he added, "The Americans are not such gudgeons as to be caught with so foolish a bait." Lord North had by this time recovered his fortitude and he defended himself with great spirit from the attacks which had been made upon him, and justified his motion, on the ground that it would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... which have just arrived, and exhorts her, now that all other hope is at an end, to join with her in the daring deed of putting Aegisthus to death: a proposal which Chrysothemis, not possessing the necessary courage, rejects as foolish, and after a violent altercation she re-enters the house. The chorus bewails Electra, now left utterly desolate. Orestes returns with Pylades and several servants bearing an urn with the pretended ashes of the deceased youth. Electra begs it of them, and laments over it in the most ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... same house is going, Tim," Nancy would exclaim, "and when it goes, let him see thin who'll do for him; let him thry if his blackguards will stand to him, when he won't have poor foolish ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... literary undertaking of Lady Morgan's, who, at the age of ninety, is still circulating in society, and is as brisk in faculties as ever. I should like to see her ladyship, that is, I should not be sorry to see her; for distinguished people are so much on a par with others, socially, that it would be foolish to be overjoyed at seeing ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thus distressed for me, my dear, my too indulgent mother," replied Emmeline, in a voice that struggled to be composed and firm, though bodily weakness defied her efforts. "I meant not to have grieved you, and yet I have done so. Oh, let not my foolish words give you pain, you whose love would, I know, seek to spare me every suffering. My brain feels confused and burning now, and I know not what I say; but it will pass away soon, and then I will try to be all ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... deceived myself. A foolish habit, formed in pique, of affecting not to hear, adhered to me long before we were acquainted. If you will let me drive you out into the country to-morrow I will tell you the whole of my silly story. The country roads ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... do so, papa. He wishes it himself.' Then with an effort, he added, 'I am sorry I went to-day; I ought not, but—' and he looked a little foolish. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which both were disabled for some hours, that she began to feel they had a hold upon something unseen, the firmness of which hold made it hard to believe it closed upon an unreality. If there was nothing there, then these dwarfs, in the exercise of their foolish, diseased, distorted fancies, came nearer to the act of creation than any grandest of poets; for these their inventions did more than rectify for them the wrongs of their existence, not only making of their chaos a habitable cosmos, but of themselves ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... that, you know," said Hermy with brisk malice. "We thought it would serve her out for never asking us to her house again after her foolish old garden-party." ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... for a thought or two about that inundation custom has made upon our language and discourse by familiar swearing; and I place it here, because custom has so far prevailed in this foolish vice that a man's discourse is hardly agreeable without it; and some have taken upon them to say it is pity it should not be lawful, it is such a grace in a man's speech, and adds so much vigour to ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... number of Mme. Dauvray's car. I did not even know that it had disappeared"; and suddenly tears of mortification filled his eyes. "But why do I make these excuses?" he cried. "It is better, M. Hanaud, that I go back to my uniform and stand at the street corner. I am as foolish as I look." ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... and if I do, I cannot agree with you. The land cannot be nobody's property. If you divide it," Ignatius Nikiforovitch began, being fully convinced that Nekhludoff was a socialist, and that the theory of socialism demands that all the land should be divided equally; that such division is foolish, and that he can easily refute it. "If you should divide the land to-day, giving each inhabitant an equal share, to-morrow it will again find its way into the hands of the more ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... horse!" The sacrist glared at the scared monk. "You foolish brother! How will you behave when you have indeed to face the King of Terrors himself if you can be so frightened by the sight of a yellow horse? It is the horse of Franklin Aylward, my father, which has been distrained by us because he owes the Abbey fifty good shillings and can never ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... motion was apparent. Then the mist, torn by the car-eddy, swirled madly in their wake. The motorists yelled delightedly. There is a picture extant, taken at just this moment. It shows the driver with a foolish grin on his face, clutching the wheel and very obviously stepping on the accelerator. A pandemonium of triumphant, hilarious shouting—and then a ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to take foolish chances, but something will be done we don't expect. Zane was a prisoner here; he had a good look at this place, and ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... object of curiosity here is the famous "Blarney Stone," about which there is a foolish tradition that whoever kisses it shall be gifted with such shrewdness and eloquence that nobody will be able to resist his persuasions. From this comes the expression of "blarney" for cunning and flattering talk. I did not perceive that the people in this neighborhood had ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... whose cowardly incompetence had once cost us the loss of our National Capital. More prudent than his runaway father, he held himself aloof from the field; his father had lost reputation and almost his commission, by coming into contact with the enemy; he would take no such foolish risks, and he did not. When false expectations of the ultimate triumph of Secession led him to cast his lot with the Southern Confederacy, he did not solicit a command in the field, but took up his quarters in Richmond, to become a sort of Informer-General, High-Inquisitor ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... looked out at one keenly and frankly from under shaggy gray brows. His mind showed itself disciplined and orderly, and its workings struck Daylight as having all the certitude of a steel trap. He was a man who KNEW and who never decorated his knowledge with foolish frills of sentiment or emotion. That he was accustomed to command was patent, and every word and gesture tingled with power. Combined with this was his sympathy and tact, and Daylight could note easily enough all the earmarks ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... today, my brethren, as I have always stood—unalterably opposed to the program of the holiness movement. First, I oppose holiness itself—the doctrine that a man can live free from sin in this life. How foolish, how utterly ridiculous, the idea. We all sin. Our fathers sinned, we sin, and our posterity will sin. Do you see that streak of sunshine that comes in at the window and falls upon the floor? See in the sunlighted atmosphere ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... less so when they saw the little party of adventurers return in safety from their desperate errand; for that return meant that one great danger at least had been safely passed, and surely now they might rely upon the citizens of San Juan to do nothing foolish. So they plucked up heart of grace, and became quite cheery and affable with the Englishmen until Heard, the purser, rather maliciously reminded them that the matter of the indemnity still remained unsettled and that many things might happen before ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood |
