"Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all this kidding and foolishness aside, for I just say in here whatever I think anybody might laugh at, But of course my real sentiments are the same as everybody else, anything to prevent war If He puts this thing through and there is no more wars, His ...
— Rogers-isms, the Cowboy Philosopher on the Peace Conference • Will Rogers
... eternal foolishness av the naygur-man. They saw the palanquin lying loneful an' forlornsome, an' the beauty av ut, after Dearsley's men had dhropped ut and gone away, an' they gave ut the best name that occurred to thim. Quite ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... call it "dinner"; to load the table with more food than anybody could eat, and much of it stuff that didn't give the stomach any honest work to do— "like that truck," she said, pointing an amused knitting-needle at the olives—was nonsense. But Blair was young; he would get over his foolishness when he got into business. Meantime, let him be foolish! "I suppose he thinks he's the grand high cockalorum!" she told herself, chuckling. Aloud ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... captain. The King piqued, turned towards his suite, and said: "That's Louvois's trade, is it not? He thinks himself a great captain, and that he knows everything," and forthwith he replaced the guard as he had put it in the morning. It was, indeed, foolishness and insolence on the part of Louvois, and the King had spoken truly of him. The King was so wounded that he could not pardon him. After Louvois's death, he related this incident to Pomponne, still annoyed at it, as I knew by means of ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... whose genius I had worshipped with a devotion which, enthusiastic as it was, I am not even now ashamed of. I longed to fall at his feet, and implore his blessing; to kiss the hem of his garment; and thought, in my foolishness, that inspiration might be communicated by his touch. I pushed back my hair, so that I might not lose a word he uttered, or the least look he gave. 'His sight was so impaired,' he said, 'that the light of day occasioned him much pain; and of late he ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... of the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge-worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence, you must also confound her with virtue. According to you, we have only to diffuse the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... and of the world by one parrel of it. The beauty and harmony of things consist in their entire union, and though there should appear many discrepancies and unpleasant discords in several parts, yet all united together, makes up a pleasant concert. Now this is our childish foolishness, that we look upon the gospel only by halves, and this being alone seen, begets misapprehensions and mistakes in our minds, for ordinarily we supply that which we see not with some fancy of our own. When the blood of Jesus Christ is holden out in its full virtue, in the large extent of its efficacy, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... clubs all 'round West Point. Cap'in Shattuck out about Palo Alto said to us niggers one day, 'Stop your foolishness—go live among your white folks an' behave. Have sense an' be good citizens.' His advice was good an' we soon broke up ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... in a burst of temper, "do you mean to tell me you don't know that George's blamed foolishness is the talk of the town? Why, he hasn't let Sally out of his sight ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... love and goodwill among them just now. The effect has been much the same: to those who heeded it matter for tears that such heavenly balm should be within our hearing but out of our grasp; to the ravenous and the rabid a mere foolishness. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... he went on, "you have fed me and put heart in me. I shall return to Rome in the morning and face whatever music my own infatuated foolishness has set going. Do you understand anything ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... by Hindu magic we became Dark monks of jeweled India long ago, Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know The foolishness of gold and love and station, The gospel of the Great Renunciation, The ragged cloak, the staff, the rain and sun, The beggar's life, with far Nirvana gleaming: Lord, ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... don't need to be afraid. I'm going to be a friend to you, and you can be mighty glad you got rid of Willoughby so easily. Why, I can buy you diamonds where he couldn't give you a calico dress. Come on, let's stop this foolishness. I took a liking to you back there in the stage, and the more I've thought about you since the crazier I've got. When I succeeded in pumping Willoughby dry, and discovered you wasn't his sister at all, why that settled the matter. I came down here after ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... are we to reconcile this present foolishness with his very laudable display of commonsense of a year ago?" went on Mrs. Tresslyn, the red spot darkening in her cheek. "He played fast and loose with all of us. I agree with Braden Thorpe. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... more things in that head than any of them in any other; unless perhaps it were Kate, whom he felt as indirectly watching him during this foolish passage, though it pleased him—and because of the foolishness—not to meet her eyes. He met Mrs. Stringham's, which affected him: with her he could on occasion clear it up—a sense produced by the mute communion between them and really the beginning, as the event ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... have imagined that they could be anything but brother and sister. The marriage of babies! Was there no single apostle of common sense in all the country—a country so gloriously free that it granted licenses to every foolishness without a qualm? ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... stay at The Young Women's Christian Association, and I am sure they will expect her to be in bed before any midnight foolishness," said Miss Elvira, with a severe glance at the frivolous Mamie Lou. "I shall, of course, make her an evening dress or two, one especially to wear when the multitude calls her before the curtain to express their admiration of and enthusiasm over her ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wood. madre mother. Madrileno native of Madrid. madurez f. maturity. maestro master. magnifico magnificent. Mahoma Mohammed. mahometano Mohammedan. maiz m. maize, corn. majaderia absurdity, foolishness. majestad f. majesty. majestuoso majestic. mal badly m. evil, injury, harm. malagueno of Malaga, a seaport of southern Spain. malaventurado unlucky. maldecido accursed. maldecir to curse. maldicion f. malediction, curse. maldito cursed. maleza ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... Imbecility. Folly — N. want of -intelligence &c. 498, want of - intellect &c. 450; shadowness[obs3], silliness, foolishness &c. adj.; imbecility, incapacity, vacancy of mind, poverty of intellect, weakness of intellect, clouded perception, poor head, apartments to let; stupidity, stolidity; hebetude[obs3], dull understanding, meanest capacity, shortsightedness; incompetence &c (unskillfulness) 699. one's weak ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... "You swallow a camel and stick at a gnat. Why did you meet me here, if you didn't expect me to make love to you? I've stood for a lot, Bella, but this foolishness will have to end. Either you love me—or you don't. I'm desperate." He ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the danger. Every Jack should have his Jill; but if every Jill has her job, why, there again the wedding day goes receding some more into the future. Let them stop all this foolishness and get married, as ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... one afternoon, I actually felt glad to see him, and welcomed him cordially. The mantle of his oddity and foolishness seemed to have slipped off, and the person I so joyfully hailed was the real man whom I felt to be in nowise inferior to myself, and moreover closely related. Finding no trace of annoyance within me at sight of him, nor any sense of my time being wasted with him, I was filled ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... "In my foolishness, my daughter, I sits like a stone, and he springs to his feet, and snatches up his things, and says, 'Good-bye, old gipsy woman, and thank you very much. I should like to stay with you,' he says, 'but Nurse is calling me, and Mother does get so frightened if I am long ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... down with you and have a shake-down on your sofa. Good-night, Smith. I am so sorry to have disturbed you with my foolishness." ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I said sharply. 'Don't talk any more such foolishness or I'll have you ironed. You've been drinking so much that you are seeing things, and I won't have the crew disturbed by ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... subject again, two days later, Theodosia told him plainly that it was no use. She would never consent to leave Heatherton and all her friends and go out to the prairies. The idea was just rank foolishness, and he would ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... any way with honest merchants of Paloma. Men are at liberty to spend their money any way they choose. I did give the men a talk about the foolishness of spending their wages in buying liquor or in gambling. Result was that men banked about two thirds of the total pay roll with the bank people you sent on pay train yesterday at my request. Also drove off a gambler who tried to erect two tents on railroad property ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... Hear the calling of the moon, And the whispering scents that stray About the idle warm lagoon. Hasten, hand in human hand, Down the dark, the flowered way, Along the whiteness of the sand, And in the water's soft caress, Wash the mind of foolishness, Mamua, until the day. Spend the glittering moonlight there Pursuing down the soundless deep Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair, Or floating lazy, half-asleep. Dive and double and follow after, Snare in flowers, and kiss, and ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... soul resists, but in resisting, is weak against the tyranny of the mind to which it has submitted so long. Question me no more. But if I vanish from thine eyes, if thou hear that the death which, to my sorrow and in my foolishness I have failed to recognize as the merciful minister of Heaven, has removed me at last from the earth, believe that the pale Visitant was welcome, and that I humbly accept as a blessed release the lot of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ought not to have helped you this time. Any one who is so crazy as to change places with a blind man should be left without help, so be careful, as I am getting tired of your foolishness, and will not help you again if you do anything as foolish as ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... would take neither popular clamor nor learned dogmatism as conclusive evidence against any writer's honesty and usefulness. With the vulgar, genius has always seemed a sort of madness; and should a man rise preeminent above the teachers of his generation, his wisdom would appear to them as foolishness." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... proceed. There is violent palpitation, and a feeling of constriction is experienced. According to Suckling, pallor and profuse perspiration are usually present, but there is no vertigo, confusion of mind, or loss of consciousness. The patient is quite conscious of the foolishness of the fears, but is unable to overcome them. The will is in abeyance and is quite subservient to the violent emotional disturbances. Gray mentions a patient who could not go over the Brooklyn Bridge ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... was that indefinite fascination which the consciousness that we are being looked at sometimes exercises over us; but as she looked back her eyes met those of Lord Blandamer, and she shut the door sharply, being annoyed at her own foolishness. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... peoples (facts which I have gratefully used) often suggest quite opposite conclusions to my thoughts than to theirs—the view-point is different, that is all. They were seeking for one thing; I for another: they were men; I am a woman. It would be foolishness for me to attempt any special pleadings for my own opinions. How far I shall succeed, or fail, to make clear to others a period of mother-right that is certain to me, I do not know. I offer my little book with all humility, and yet without any apology. We may read ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the Russian prophet than when he wrote "The Idiot," and uttered in it his humble thanksgiving that through the curse of nature, through the utter uselessness of his physical machine, through sickness and foolishness and poverty, he had been saved from doing the world's evil and adding to its death. And Moussorgsky is the counterpart of the great romancer. Like the other, he comes in priestly and ablutionary office. Like the other, he expresses the moving, lowly god, the god of the low, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... that courage might fail the stoutest man; Bolli answered that it was still to be tried whose courage would hold out longest. Then many broke in and said that this talk was foolishness; and when the king's spies had heard so much, they went back to the king and told him how ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... must confess that I was a little pleased that our friend Harriet was so zealous to see Shakspeare's house, when it wasn't his house, and so earnest to get sprigs from his mulberry, when it wasn't his mulberry." We were quite ready to allow the foolishness of the thing, and join the laugh ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... women work and mend and cook and sew, doing their part to help things along. Many of the husbands are earning five to eight dollars a day and spending most of it on foolishness. The poor wives get only enough for bare necessities, and yet they patiently work and mend ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... going to risk being dispossessed of my burrow, so stuck to my post as long as a human being was in sight. I had managed to get a message through to Brown, some time before sunset, asking him to send David out to look for the oxen. When I reached the camp I was roundly pitched into for my foolishness in abandoning the cattle and running after "wild cat." However, my blood was now up, so I told Brown that for the present I would do no more cattle herding, as I meant to return next morning to my claim. Brown forbade my doing this, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... graciously to this plan, the preparations for a program were begun at once. And of all the excited performers-elect none was so excited as Anne Shirley, who threw herself into the undertaking heart and soul, hampered as she was by Marilla's disapproval. Marilla thought it all rank foolishness. ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... needed; but He would be more; He would be also their Teacher, Guide, Strengthener, as Jesus had been. At every point of need there would He be as an ever-present and all-wise, almighty Helper. He would meet their need with His sufficiency; their weakness with His strength; their foolishness with His wisdom; their ignorance with His knowledge; their blindness and short-sightedness with His perfect, all-embracing vision. Hallelujah! What a Comforter! Why ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... the cross, of Jesus Christ as the World's Redeemer, the putting away of sin, and the gift of eternal life by faith in God's word of grace, the baptism into the name of Christ, had, for several decades, been growingly scouted as "foolishness." "An obsolete doctrine," all that was voted. "Men are far too intelligent to be bound by such a Bible creed as that. New times need new ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... not to be large, in attempts to carry on a country place. "A Hambleton trait!" they chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this phrase became almost synonymous with genteel foolishness. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... days before the surrender of the town, the scheme of the "Destroyers" was unwittingly disclosed through the foolishness of the man who had been apparently chosen to carry it out. Judge Kock, who was a friend of Dr. Krause's, came over to Johannesburg for the purpose of making a last and determined effort to destroy the mines. Being a great friend of the Krauses, he was invited to stay at their house. In ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... floor. They ask Juan what is the matter. Juan says that the naughty pot was making too much noise, and was mocking him; and, as the captain bade him be careful about making a noise, he struck the pot and broke it into pieces. The captain cannot help smiling at Juan's foolishness, and he tells Juan to prepare a lunch with anything he ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... foolishness for us to prate of old-world castes when it is a part of our national creed that any one among us may rise as high as the best of us, provided he can grow the wings wherewith to soar. That little speech which almost broke your heart is a part of our creed, too. 'The hand of Douglas ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... are talking fool's talk and giving out words that are foolishness! There is no one at all can put away from his road the bones and the ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... upon as being more akin than now. Beside the terms of contempt and sarcasm,—goose, loon, pig, calf, donkey, etc.,—those figures of speech which, the world over, express the sentiment of the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon regarding the foolishness of babes,—we, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,—"a jewel of a babe," and the like,—legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the Low German dialects are more lavish ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... mother, Olaf," she went on, "but, to be honest, I would have been could I have had my fancy though, strangely enough, I never felt thus towards Ragnar, your brother. Now, why do you make me talk foolishness? Come hither, and I will show you the entrance to the grave; it is where the sun first strikes ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... the diner—fourth car rear. Jack felt as though he could eat about five dollars' worth of breakfast. He was only a month or so past twenty-two, remember, and he himself had not committed any crime save the crime of foolishness. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... "Mr. Wordsworth speaks foolishness to a great many people besides Nancy Butterworth," said Sophia warmly; "but he is a great poet and a great seer to those who can ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... loving and pure—they're made differently from men. It was unnatural, her ever going away at all. But she's a good woman, and she shall get what she deserves hereafter. When I settle this bill for my foolishness ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... thou, the foe of comfort, heat, O thou who hast the corner seat, Facing the engine, as we say (Although it is so far away, And in between So many coaches intervene, The phrase partakes of foolishness);— O thou who sittest there no less, Keeping the window down Though all the carriage frown, Why dost thou so rejoice in air? Not air that nourishes and braces, Such as one finds in watering-places, But air to chill a polar bear— Malignant air at sixty miles an hour That rakes the carriage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various
... between them; but it would have been extremely painful to have let this creep into his thoughts, just as it would have been painful for him had she spoken of it; so he preferred to say to himself that all was well. The child had gotten over all that foolishness; he would have disliked to find fault with her, as he must have done had she mentioned it; he was glad it was all forgotten. He was glad, too, Lois was going to Lockhaven to see her. Poor little Lois! Ah, poor Denner! Well, well, there are some very sad ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... bride, is enraptured by their skill. He especially admires the Spanish {366} dancer Esmeralda, who bewitches him so entirely, that he wooes her. The director of the band being in want of a dancing-bear, is not loth to take advantage of the lad's foolishness. He engages him as a dancer, and easily overcomes Wenzel's scruples by promising him Esmeralda's hand. Just when they are putting him in bear's skin his parents appear on the scene with the marriage contract. To their great dismay he refuses to sign it ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... eighteen. What if we freely admit that we cannot reconcile these statements? That does not prove that they are not reconcilable. The history of solved contradictions has certainly shown this, that as "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men," so the discords of God are more ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... "'Tis foolishness, of course," said he, roughly, "but I'd be cut up some meself if our little Pat was kidnapped or anything. But there never was any childer for us. Sometimes I've been ugly and hard ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... said the Secretary darkly, "if you're goin' to fire off your face about plays an' the Educational Alliances you can keep your own minnits, that's all! Do ye think I'm goin' to write down your foolishness? Well, I ain't." ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... you damned engine-driving, plate-laying, missionarys-pass-hunting hound! He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... cheerfully. "I once lost a heap of money through my own foolishness, and I've managed to forget it, and I even reckon to get it back again out of Santa Ana if my mill speculation holds good. So good-by, Mrs. Wade—but not for long." He shook her hand frankly and departed, leaving the widow conscious of a certain sympathetic confidence ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... my own African adventures, and perhaps yours too, which I am sure will interest me a great deal more," she exclaimed earnestly. "You think it is all foolishness, but it is not. Those Kendah priestesses told me much when I seemed to be out of my mind. For a long time I did not remember what they said, but of late years, especially since George and I began to excavate that temple, plenty has come back to me bit by bit, fragments, ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... have made and am making for the restoration of a righteous peace to our country, I am upheld and sustained by the good wishes and prayers of God's people. No one is more deeply than myself aware that without His favor our highest wisdom is but as foolishness and that our most strenuous efforts would avail nothing in the shadow of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... "You talk some foolishness. A young man like you! A quarrel with your sweetheart, is it? Well, it will be over as quick as a rainy day. ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... was foolishness. All you had to do was to walk through a grove of cottonwoods, over a brook, through another grove of pines, down a sloping meadow to where one of the gigantic pine-trees had obligingly spanned the current. You crossed that, traversed another ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... 'cause the old chief said he was a squaw man. Pa says they don't seem to realize that a man can be brave unless he allows himself to be killed by a bear, but he says he will show them that a great mind and a great head is better in the end than foolishness. Now they want Pa to run a footrace with the young Indians, as the record he made getting to camp ahead of the bear is better than any time ever made on ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... Daisy's foolishness, doctor. It contains a gipsy, whom she induced me to hire for some ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... in her coil of contortions, stumbles like a drunken vagabond against angle and corner, filling the dusty air with scraps of paper and rag. "What fury of foolishness! Are the Gods gone ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... a sad deed; and yet tomorrow's dawn may light up thousands to as grim a fate. Why? thou tremblest! Alas! kind soul! The single death of this fond, faithful heart hath quite upset my love. Yet art thou used to battle. Why! this is foolishness. Art not glad to see me? What, not one smile! And I have come to fight for thee! I ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... the zeal within us, and there is no way of satisfying this burning zeal save the feasting on the coveted goal—the riches and beauties of wisdom. One writer says: "As long as one's mind is shrouded in ignorance he is but the tool of others, and the victim of foolishness and gross absurdities. He will never experience those pleasures which come from a well-directed train of thought and which is akin to the dignity of a high nature. On the other hand, the person whose mind is illumined with the light of knowledge, and whose soul is ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... news Frank was stricken to the heart. He saw now how his foolishness had ruined his father, because it was through his obstinacy that Rashleigh had gained admission to his father's confidence. Mr. Osbaldistone, he knew, would never survive the disgrace of bankruptcy. He must, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... to talk to her plainer than a gentleman can talk to a young lady. I want her to understand that I am marrying so that I can have a WIFE—cheerful, ready, and healthy. I'll not put up with foolishness of ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... dear nurse, the gods have bereft thee of thy sense; and verily, they can make the wisdom of the wise to be foolishness, and they can give wisdom to the simple. Why dost thou mock me, rousing me out of my sleep, the sweetest that hath ever come to my eyes since the day when Ulysses sailed for Troy, most hateful of cities? Go, get thee to the chamber of the women! Had another ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... me responded to the call. Say it was romance if you like, say it was sentiment, say it was just foolishness. Something inside of me answered to the call. We worked all that night, patching that bad plate on the boiler. The other boilers were under steam, so you can believe it was hot down under there. My hands were all soft with office work, and in the first few hours I got cuts all over them, and the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... apologized the doubter, now fully reassured by the above shrewdly fashioned answer, "but Anna was always so infernally jealous of you, and made herself so wretched over the fear of losing your affection, that I could think of no other reason for her foolishness. Now, about this will," he added, hastily changing the subject and referring to the document. "I don't feel quite right to have all Anna's fortune, in addition to my own, and no doubt the poor girl would have repented of her rash act if she could have lived ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... about me all the time. And I kept lifting up my heart to the God who had cared to make me, and then drew me to be a preacher to my fellows, and had surely something to give me to say to them; for did He not choose so to work by the foolishness of preaching?—Might not my humble ignorance work His will, though my wrath could not work His righteousness? And I descended from the pulpit thinking with myself, "Let Him do as He will. Here I am. I will say what I see: let ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... one could be voodooed. I lived nearly all my life with white folks and they don't heed no foolishness like that, do they? I cooked, worked in the field, washed ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... sometimes seem rather strange, but a great deal that's told is foolishness. He never thrashed any one," answered the monk. "Now, gentlemen, if you will wait a minute I will ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in not having profited by her sojourn at Teplitz, seeking her companionship sooner. It is a frightful thing to make the acquaintance of such a sweet creature, and to lose her immediately; and nothing is more insupportable than thus to have to confess one's own foolishness.... Be happy, if suffering humanity can be. Give, on my part, to the countess a cordial but respectful pressure of the hand, and to Amalie a right ardent kiss—if nobody there ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... all right for a soldier school! But, now take that young chap for a sample. What on earth does he know outside of drill and mathematics and what you call discipline? What could he do in case we cut off all this—this foolishness—and came down to business? I'd be willing to bet a sweet sum that, take him out of the army, turn him loose in the streets, and he'd starve, by gad! before he could ever earn enough to pay ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... when you ain't watchin'; horses in these parts ain't broke for no such lopsided foolishness as side-saddles. But you see she does it becomin', and that's where the grudge comes in. You can't stir about these foot-hills without coming across a woman, like as not, holdin' on to a posse of kids, and ridin' clothes-pin ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... afraid of getting them mad, if it is the truth that makes them mad. If it is our foolishness that makes them mad, then we have got reason to mourn over it. If it is the truth, God sent it, and it is a good deal better to have a man get mad than it is to have him go to sleep. I think the trouble with a great many nowadays is that they are sound asleep, and it is a good deal better ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... 9:28 28 O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... person has ever regarded, much less recommended, as providing any city to dwell in; and which has certainly been the scene if not the occasion, not merely of much mischief, which does not particularly concern us, but of much foolishness and bad taste, which partly does. It was almost—not quite—the only theme of Murger's songs and words. And—last and perhaps most dangerous of all—there was the fact that, if not in definite Bohemianism, there was in other respects a ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... only indifference; and his old strenuousness, with its tragic despair, seemed not a little ridiculous. His eagerness to keep clean from what he thought prostitution was melodramatic and silly, his idea of purity mere foolishness. If the body was excrement, as from his youth he had been taught, what could it matter how one used it! Did anything matter, when a few years would see the flesh he had thought divine corrupt and worm-eaten? James was willing now to float along the stream, sociably, with his fellows, ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... Old Home House itself was one of his inspirations, so was the hirin' of college waiters, the openin' of the two 'Annex' cottages, the South Shore Weather Bureau, and a whole lot more. Sometimes, as in the weather-bureau foolishness, the disease left him and t'other two patients—meanin' me and Cap'n Jonadab—pretty weak in the courage, and wasted in the pocketbook; but gen'rally they turned out good, and our systems and bank ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him ter stay. I ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, nohow. Em'ry Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble well acquainted with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy an' mammy, an' both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could tell ye exac'ly which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, an' them lean sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... under heaven by which men could be saved, but the name of Jesus. Because they declared, even at Athens, the seat of learning and refinement, the self-evident truth, that "they be no gods that are made with men's hands," and exposed to the Grecians the foolishness of worldly wisdom, and the impossibility of salvation but through Christ, whom they despised on account of the ignominious death he died. Because at Rome, the proud mistress of the world, they thundered out the terrors of the law upon that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... assented. "I can't see that I owe him anything, and he once led me into a piece of foolishness that nobody but himself could have thought of. I knew the thing was crazy, but I did it when he urged me, and I've regretted it ever since. Still, when I meet the fellow I expect I shan't have a ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Fellow," she spoke sharply, tightening the reins as she touched his flank with her spur, "we haven't time for foolishness! Generally, in fact always," accenting the last word, "horses—and men—go in the direction I want them to go! Why, you're as stubborn—as—as the Ramblin' Kid!" she finished with another laugh as Old Blue, ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... never blamed either, and I'm afraid, if the truth were told, my father was hot enough too, though it would all have been bygones with him long ago, if they would have let it. But I was thinking just then of my own foolishness last winter, when I would not grant you it was pride, Mrs. Kendal, for fear I should ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slowly, as if choosing his words with care, "the Bishop's head, being so wise, revealed to him, in himself, a certain foolishness ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... ordering you down at the time; but don't go up again except to help to carry down the wounded. Make it a rule, my boys, never to shirk your duty, however great the risk to life may be; but, on the other hand, never risk your lives unless it is your duty to do so. What is gallantry in the one case is foolishness in the other. Although you are but pages, yet it may well be that in such a siege as this you will have many opportunities of showing that you are of good English stock; but while I would have you ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... exclaimed with a shrug of her youthful shoulders. "Perhaps you think I have time for such foolishness—what with housework to do and washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... well; As the Lord liveth, those poor lips, my child, Speak foolishness. Who taught thee to rebuke Thy father? Know, he stands 'twixt thee and God, Not thou between ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... He just lunched himself away from me on his back an' whined somethin' about only tryin' to show us the truth an' not wantin' any trouble, an' a lot o' such foolishness; but I soon wearied of it, an' grabbed him by the collar an' yanked him to his feet, an' sez, "Now answer me one question—who told you that Dick ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... glance brimful of haughty contempt. 'You speak foolishness,' he said. With which he strode away ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... again at once, more emphatically, "There must be religion for the unhappy, so that they won't give way. It may be foolishness, but if you take that away from them, what ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... like a book and I saw what was in her mind. "Letitia Carberry!" I said sternly. "You take my warning and keep clear of this foolishness. If money comes as easy as that it ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Whibley that it disliked me, thinking that I was unsympathetic. The complaint was unjust; I was not unsympathetic, at least not at the commencement. I came to hear it talk, and I wanted to hear it talk; I would have listened to it by the hour. What tired me was its slowness in starting, and its foolishness when it had started, in using long words that it did not know how to spell. I remember on one occasion, Whibley, Jobstock (Whibley's partner), and myself, sitting for two hours, trying to understand what the thing meant by "H-e-s-t-u-r-n-e-m-y-s-f-e-a-r." ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... know as much as the balance of us, and that's all you will ever have any use for. I notice you have a hankering after books, but the quicker you get that foolishness out of your head the better; for books won't put bread in your mouth and clothes on your back; and folks that want to be better than their neighbors generally turn out worse. The less book-learning you ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with him to Philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the mining operations ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... bitterness at all this I grew sarcastic with him. "Sit down," said I. "Why all this foolishness about a college girl with a shirtwaist and a ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... laughed Levasseur. "What heat and what foolishness! You have not considered the alternative. When you do, you will not persist in your refusal. You will not do that in any case. We have spurs for the reluctant. And I warn you against giving me your parole under stress, and afterwards playing ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the t'other a chap from Ludgvan, Harry Cornish by name. I reckon the sight of the old shores just made them mazed as sheep, and like sheep they followed his lead. The officers ran to stop any more from copying such foolishness; and if they hadn't, I believe the boat would have been swamped there and then. As 'twas, she re-hoisted her big lug and away-to-go for Mousehole, the three passengers sitting down to leeward with their sterns in and out of the water to help keep her damaged ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... him. Does Mr. Rogers attack Paul as making a fanatical divorce between faith and intellect, and say that he is compelled so to understand him, when he avows that "the natural man understandeth not the things of God; for they are foolishness unto him." "When the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Here is a pretended champion of Evangelical truth seeking to explode as absurdities the sentiments and ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... quickly, "if you must know—it was only a bit of gossip—servants gossip. I know all that can be said respecting the foolishness of listening to gossip from such a source—but I can't help it. One of the maids ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Gipsies for generations, and the consequence has been, they have trotted out kings, queens, princes, bishops, nobles, ladies and gentlemen of all grades, wise men, fools, and fanatics, to fill their coffers, while they have been standing by laughing in their sleeves at the foolishness of ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... in the way of learning state secrets than I am, Orme," I answered sarcastically, being rather irritated at the course of events and his foolishness. ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... mere foolishness,' said I. 'If you owe a duty to your father, I owe one to my mother, which is to get out of ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... carry out a plan which means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... his face, both hands now clasping the telephone—his right being completely numbed—he called upon the gods to witness the foolishness of mortals. Suddenly a hideous cackle of mosquito-laughter filtered through and, by some diabolical contrivance of the signals, the tiny voice swelled into a bellow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... so forth, imbibing by the way various doctrines, or parts of doctrines, which she is not the sort of person to assimilate, but with which she is experimenting: holding, meantime, a grim intuition of their foolishness, or so it seems to me. 'The science' made it easier for her to seek her ancestors in a foreign country with only a hundred dollars in her purse; for the Salem priestess proclaims the glad tidings that all the wealth of the world is ours, if we will but assert our heirship. Benella believed ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Hermit, 'I possessed the perfect knowledge of God. But in my foolishness I parted with it, and divided it amongst others. Yet even now is such knowledge as remains to me more precious than ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... learned man was he, Men called him good and just; But his wisdom seemed like foolishness, By that ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... off, so far as concerned notice given, with a House that shall be nameless,—for the question on which I took my departing stand was a fixed charge for waiters, and no House as commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of more than foolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me,—I repeat, at a momentous crisis, when I was off with a House too mean for mention, and not yet on with that to which I have ever since had the honour of being attached in the capacity of Head, {1} I ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... digging up our ancestors—we only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand up to the best of them in your hills—if it's in you to stand. It all lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out. Afterward I have a ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... some such verdammpt foolishness from you. You see this? It is a contract; a release, a transfer of all your interests in Harkness, Incorporated. It needs only your signature, and that will be supplied. No one will question it when we are done: the very ink in the stylus ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... here's your chance to see the world on a big scale. You know already what work and saving and steady habits and sense will bring a man, to; you don't want to go round among the rich; you want to go among the poor, and see what laziness and drink and dishonesty and foolishness will bring men to. And I guess he knows, about as well as anybody; and if he ever goes to preaching he'll know what he's preaching about." The old man smiled his fierce, simple smile, and in his sharp eyes March fancied contempt of the ambition he had balked ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... replied the voice of reason from the lips of Miss Paget; "it is all foolishness from beginning to end, and I can foresee nothing but trouble as the result of such folly. What will your mamma say to such an engagement? or what ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... means by which labor can now be obtained, (the contract system,) I have found scarcely one who will enter into the matter with any kind of sympathy, or with either the belief or the hope that our plans will eventually succeed, for they feel keenly that the success of those plans will prove the foolishness of slavery. ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... it creaked but did not give. He took the top rail in his teeth, while the mares stood back, wondering, in a high-headed semi-circle and the grey kept nudging at his flank, saying very plainly: "Enough of this nonsense. These gangling creatures, all legs and foolishness, are not of our kind, O my master. Let us be gone!" But Alcatraz heeded her not. He shook the gate ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... which means so much if used properly, is applied to all sorts of slightly unpleasant things and people. When one thinks of the literal Latin meaning of this word ("so dreadful as to cause us to shudder"), the foolishness of using it so lightly is plain. People frequently now declare that they have a "shocking cold"—a description which, again, is too violent for ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... undone by thine own foolishness. Why didst chatter to a stranger about thy papers? Is not all England agog to find the land of 'El Dorado'? Dost think that any man breathing could resist the temptation to gain a knowledge of the way thither? I ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... scout rode back and made his report to the Persian king. Now there was in the camp of Xerxes one Demaratus, who had formerly been King of Sparta, but who had been driven out and had joined himself to the Persian court. Xerxes sent for him and, describing to him what he considered the foolishness of the Greeks, asked what it might mean. In reply Demaratus said, "Thou hast heard from me, O King, the truth concerning these men before this, even when we were first beginning this war; but when thou heardest it thou ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... anchor lay." (I observe that these lines are more or less familiar to you, and that you are eager to add selections to the list, all of them known to me as well as you.) That children, especially boys, loathe to speak a piece is a fact profoundly significant. They know it is nothing in the world but foolishness; and if there is one thing above another that a child hates, it is to be made a fool in public. That's what makes them work their fingers so, and gulp, and stammer, and tremble at the knees. That is what sends them to their seats, after all is over, mad as hornets. This is something ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... good many things that'll surprise you," said Viner quietly. "And you'll see, then, the foolishness of jumping at what seems to be ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... waved a hand in the direction of Pymeut—"I think we dreamed 'em, Boy. You and me playing the Big Game with Fohtune. Foolishness! Klondyke? Yoh crazy. Tell me the river's hard as iron and the snow's up to the windah? Don' b'lieve a wo'd of it. We're on some plantation, Boy, down South, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... ten, but even at thirty it would be foolishness to retrace all that hard-won distance merely for the sake of keeping in sight of this muddy stream, the very water of which is unfit for Christian stomach, and of no value otherwise. 'Tis my vote we strike directly east and north, following as straight a trail as possible ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... age to be making trials at writing poetry Mr. Allan regarded as sheer idleness, to be promptly suppressed. Indeed, when he discovered that the boy had been guilty of such foolishness, he emphatically ordered him not to repeat it. To counteract the effects of his wife's spoiling of her adopted son, he felt it his duty to place all manner of restrictions upon his liberty, which the freedom-loving boy, with the connivance of his mother and the negro servants ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... protested the dentist. "It's mighty hard," he added sympathetically. "Women are mostly children, the better sort, and you feel bad, even when they're in trouble through their own foolishness." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick |
