"Idiot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the steppe defends himself from the crows—that I have bitten my hands with pain and despair—that I still defend myself. But I cannot any more. I cannot. The evidence pounds on my brain. He avoids me. He tells me that I have become an idiot—that I have ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... son to Tom Allonby, who had been Marquis of Falmouth at his uncle's death, had not Tom Allonby, upon the very eve of that event, broken his neck in a fox-hunt; but Dan Gabriel, come post-haste from Heaven had with difficulty convinced the village idiot that Holy Church had smiled upon Tom's union with a tanner's daughter, and that their son was lord of Allonby Shaw. I doubted it, even as I read the proof. Yet it was true,—true that I had precedence even of the great Monsieur ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... I think one of us must go into town. 'Twill never do to leave poor Nutter in the lurch; and between ourselves, that O'Flaherty's a—a blood-thirsty idiot, by Jove—and ought to ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in anything, Hunterleys," he declared. "You could tell me the most amazing things in the world and they'd pass in at one ear and out at the other. Kind of a blithering idiot, eh? You know what I did last night after dinner. If you'll believe me, when I got to the villa, I found the place patrolled as though they were afraid of dynamiters. I skulked round to the back, got on the beach, and climbed a little way up towards the ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fashion, but neither threats nor entreaties moved mademoiselle from her decision. "Bah!" he said, "it is the way with them all, a woman can never be a true artist. Directly she rises to any height she goes off and gets married, ten to one to some idiot, who interferes in all her arrangements, and so her career is spoiled. I did think Mademoiselle Laurentia was above such frivolity. I imagined that, at last, I had discovered a true artist, one to whom her art was everything. No, I am again mistaken, and Mademoiselle Laurentia—why, ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... development, on the principle of analogy, to commend itself to every scholar. It is equally obvious that the low-bred and foul-mouthed ruffian Captain Tucca must be meant for Sir Philip Sidney; the vulgar idiot Asinius Bubo for Lord Bacon; the half-witted underling Peter Flash for Sir Walter Raleigh; and the immaculate Celestina, who escapes by stratagem and force of virtue from the villanous designs of Shakespeare, for the lady long since indicated ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... you—you idiot! Boy, boy, say!" she screamed with such a sharp, insistent treble that it reached the lad's ears. He turned around ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... too,' in other words, he epitomizes the army and navy. It is the military man who is foolish enough to believe anything and who keeps alive the most absurd superstitions and customs. The ancient Greeks cast a side-light on this truth, for their word for private soldier was 'idiot.' And on account of this strange stupidity of soldiers, things that would be disgraceful in private life become glorious in war. Their one virtue is obedience, unqualified by any of the balancing virtues, and they wear liveries to show that they are servile. And then ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... would be an iniquity. His words found a sympathetic echo among the crowd, and the Gov.-General, deadly pale with rage, yielded to this demonstration of public opinion. Antonio Novales was pardoned, but the strain on his nerves weakened his brain, and he lived for many years a semi-idiot in receipt of a monthly pension ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Ivanovna, to whose rooms Raskolnikoff went the day before for the purpose of pawning his watch to make his rehearsal. He knew all about this Elizabeth, as she knew also a little about him. She was a tall, awkward woman, about thirty-five years of age, timid and quiet, indeed almost an idiot, and was a regular slave to her sister, working for her day and night, trembling before her and enduring even blows. She was evidently hesitating about something, as she stood there with a bundle under her arm, and her friends were pressing some subject rather warmly. When Raskolnikoff ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... sick-faced, grinning rascal, whose staring eyes had shocked him out of his senses. And what a damned fool he had made of himself with the crucifix! He ground his teeth together as he cursed himself for a sentimental idiot. ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... Nattie, as she watched his retreating form, "that he is not going to make an idiot of himself! Not only because he is as good a fellow as he is a blundering one, and I wouldn't for the world hurt his feelings, but also because it would be dreadfully uncomfortable to have a rejected lover wandering around in the ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... in. But her roof was going stripping, and half her house was felled, and she couldn't get her son (the idiot boy) to leave his bed. He would perish; he would die; he was all the family she had left to her—wouldn't the master come ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... merriment, Urania thoughtful. This day's entertainment was too much in Ida's honour to be pleasant to Miss Rylance; yet she could not deny herself the painful privilege of being there. She wanted to see what happened—how far Mr. Wendover was disposed to make an idiot of himself. She saw more than enough in the glances of the charioteer, when he turned to talk to the girls behind him—now to point out some feature in the landscape, now to ask some idle question, but always with looks ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... strange enough. But this is not all. Many persons who have conducted themselves foolishly in active life, and whose conversation has indicated no superior powers of mind, have left us valuable works. Goldsmith was very justly described by one of his contemporaries as an inspired idiot, and by another ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... apparent insanity of the remark, but the more I gaze on your features, the more I'm convinced that you'd never be such a suicidal idiot as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... idiotic tendency, usually accompanied by a case history, tainted heredity and highly neurotic constitution. AEstheticism has reason for complaint, and more than one painter or sculptor has represented the union of Leda with the Swan. It is certainly much better for society, for an idiot or an imbecile to be castrated than for him to make a girl ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... stand—that she first—. But where's the use of thinking of that, or any thing else," he exclaimed with a sudden burst of passion, "where a woman is concerned? They are all, all alike, and I am a double fool! But go, Rose, go—enjoy her splendour, and lie in wait, as she did, for some rich idiot!" ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... means a child who, not being an idiot or imbecile or otherwise a proper person to be sent to an institution under the control of the Mental Hospitals Department, and not being merely backward, is by reason of mental or physical defect incapable of receiving proper benefit from instruction in an ordinary school, ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... spirit, prying into the universe, not lording it over it; a thoughtful spectator of the scenes of life, or ruminator on the fate of mankind, not a painted pageant, a stupid idol set up on its pedestal of pride for men to fall down and worship with idiot fear and wonder at the thing themselves have made, and which, without that fear and wonder, would in itself ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... sensations of pain, but having no emotion of resentment? Did you imagine that there was no danger in inflicting on me pains, however great; miseries, however direful? Do you believe me impotent, imbecile, and idiot-like, with no understanding to contrive my escape and thy ruin, and no energy to perpetrate it? I will tell the end of thy infernal works. The country, in justice, shall hear me. I would that I had the language of fire, that my words might glow, and burn, and drop like molten ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... he's my friend, I suppose? You look down on him just because he's a hard worker, and of some use in the world—not a dandified, conventional, wasp-waisted idiot like Cecil Reeve! Perhaps you ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... to retract. Let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent oppressive acts. You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... is no music in the life That sounds with idiot laughter solely, There's not a string attuned to mirth But has ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... great chums, Ethan and I, Skinner; and I cried. Why—why, damn it, sir, this boy Matt's people and mine are all buried in the same cemetery back home. Yes, sir! And nearly all of 'em have the same epitaph—'Lost at Sea'—and—you idiot, Skinner! What do you mean, sir, by standing there with your infernal little smile on your smug face? Out of my office, you jackanapes, and call the dogs off this boy Matt. Why, there was never one of his breed that wasn't a man and a seaman, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... France called him "the wisest fool in Christendom." At the age of thirty-seven, this Scotchman succeeded to the throne of England as James I. "He was indeed," says Macaulay, "made up of two men—a witty, well-read scholar who wrote, disputed, and harangued, and a nervous, driveling idiot who acted." ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... that flew round him: nor would abstain from the meanest theft if he was either hungry or dry, or would murder his dearest friend for a farthing; and also was in every particular as wanting in his understanding as an infant or an idiot. These truths are so evident that all must agree to them; though some may dispute about the quantity and the degree: for they may think, that a very little virtue is sufficient for happiness; but for riches, property, power, honour, and all such ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... of struggle and economy for the exploring party, to which had been added a chaperon in the large and reassuring person of Becky Zalmonowsky, the class idiot. Sadie Gonorowsky's careful mother had considered Patrick too immature to bear the whole responsibility, and he, with a guile which promised well for his future, had complied with her desires and preserved his own authority unshaken. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... like," he declared, indulgently. "Our clients send us in these things with their own description and we haven't time to verify them all—not likely. One bedroom suite, then—there you are. Now then, Burton, you blithering idiot," he muttered savagely under his breath, "if you can't hold your tongue I'll kick you out of your seat Thirty pounds shall we say?" he continued, leaning forward persuasively. "Twenty pounds, then? The price makes no difference to me, only ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... announced to the world that the kingdom of Greece is bankrupt. The Morning Chronicle, at a time when it was regarded as a semi-official authority on foreign affairs, declared and certified that the king of Greece was an idiot. Verily! the battle of Navarino has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... "Triple idiot!" she reflected wrathfully, as she poured out coffee, "you had better have held your tongue," and she set herself to charm away the shadow from his face and dispel any suspicion he might have formed of her desire to probe into his affairs. She had an uncommon personality and could talk ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Sam thought bitterly; that was the whole trouble. This cravenness, this kowtowing before any idiot with a louder voice, certainly wasn't in his genes. The trouble was in his conditioning, started when he was an adolescent. Give somebody an inch and they'll take two. Pretty soon they're walking all over you, and you've become so used to ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... was going to," retorted the lieutenant irritably; "but the idiot who uses this glass ought to be turned out of the service for being short-sighted. I shall never get it to the ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... idea of that," interjected Borgert, with a great show of righteous indignation. "If this totally incapable idiot becomes major I ought to be made at least a general. Though it is queer that the colonel is evidently moving heaven ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... had done him in eating a share of his proportion. 'Well,' says the laird, 'I hope M'ille Chruimb,' for so the Irishman was called, 'you will take no notice of him that did that; for he is but a fool that plays the fool now and then.' 'I cannot tell,' says he, 'but he is no idiot at eating, nor will I let my affront pass so; for I must have a turn or two of wrestling with him for it in your presence.' Whereupon a stander-by asks Duncan if he would wrestle with him. 'I will,' says he, 'for I think I was fit sides with ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... ever see such an idiot since girls were first created? Not help it, after having given him as good as a promise! You must help it. You must ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Cohen confessed to me to-day that she had pumped him all about Hawkins's coming over to New York and signing papers; and, although he swears he didn't tell her anything in particular, yet I don't trust the idiot. No, Quib; it's bad business and we've got to get Hawkins out of the ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... became all apologies and indignation. He regretted more than words could tell that the American gentlemen who deigned to patronize his restaurant had been put to annoyance. The garcon—here he turned and burned up that individual with a fiery sideglance—was a debased idiot and the misbegotten son of a yet greater and still more debased idiot. The cashier was a green hand and an imbecile besides. It was incredible, impossible, that the overcharging had been done deliberately; that was inconceivable. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... was one of those days of rest which some idiot in the Council had once sponsored. And a group of soft-headed fools had concurred, so that one now had to tolerate periodic ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... know, like t' rest o' 'em, what he saw!' cried Margaret angrily, facing round upon the boy, whose face was, indeed, one question.' "Margaret, did he tell tha what t' witch said to un?"—every blatherin idiot i' th' parish asked me that, wi his mouth open, till I cud ha stopped my ears an run wheniver I seed a livin creetur. What do I keer?—what doos it matter to me what he saw? I doan't bleeve he saw owt, if yo ast me. He wor skeert wi his own thinkins, an th' cowd gripped him i' th' in'ards, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "I'm sorry Kathleen West lives here. I thought we were going to have a peaceful year. But every fall apparently brings its problem. Really, Grace, I can't help feeling terribly remorseful to think that it is I who have caused all this trouble. If I hadn't been such an idiot when I first came here, you and Alberta Wicks and Mary Hampton might at ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... orderly and elevated minds; and here stands the barrier that separates them from the common and the waste. Is a man to be angry because an infant is fretful? Is a philosopher to unpack and throw away his philosophy, because an idiot has tried to overturn it on the road, and has pursued it with gibes ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... your gold; I want not your pity. I am sane. Would I had been born a drivelling idiot, and remained ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... at a valuation, as well as the village itself with all its cottages and people, in order that the castle might have its proper setting out there. There were two more things he wanted included in the bargain—a village idiot and a family ghost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... to be released. They begged in vain: certainly some of them must have been permanently injured. For my own part, when I neared the stove I was nearly suffocated; but I took heart when I saw but three more men between me and the hole. At this moment a sound as of tramping feet was heard, and some idiot on the outer edge of the mob startled us with the cry, "The guards the guards!" A fearful panic ensued, and the entire crowd bounded toward the stairway leading up to their sleeping-quarters. The stairway was unbanistered, and some of the men were forced off the edge and fell on those beneath. ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... and get to bed, child. And look here—I give you this advice free: a fire lighted by an idiot can do as much damage as any other kind ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... "Idiot!" I howled. "Sir Walter's gone down there. Wimpole has slipped us. He's half a mile down the other road. You're wrong... Are you deaf? ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... only find out from Walter what he's mad at, and tell him he's an idiot and a heartless thing, maybe we could smooth it out, because I know that 'way down in her ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... him like a nat'ral-born idiot, into a little grocery-shop near by, where we sets down at a table with a bottle atween us. Then it comes out as there is a New Bedford whaler about to start for the fishin' grounds, an' jest one able-bodied sailor like me ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... be helped. I've done my three cards with pictures of flowers, and the rest of the calendar will have to be plain," said Lizzie. "You were rather an idiot, Ulyth." ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... combined! He could no longer make allowances for the spite of a woman whose lover had been traduced. Rage and despair seized him; he bit his nails and tore his hair with fury, and prayed Heaven to help him hate her as she deserved, "the blind, insolent idiot!" Yes, these bitter words actually came out of his mouth, in a torrent ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... that?" And in this manner he asked me of whoever was old or ugly in the room. I made no sort of answer: and when he found that I was resolutely silent, and walked on as much as I could without observing him, he suddenly stamped his foot, and cried out in a passion, "Fool! idiot! booby!" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... a bon-mot of Sir Thomas on the birth of his son. He had three daughters, but his wife was impatient for a son: at last they had one, but not much above an idiot—"you have prayed so long for a boy," said the Chancellor, "that now we have got one who I believe will be a boy ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... do not place much stock in Professor Cortoran's theory, though I admit that I am prejudiced. Naturally one does not care to believe that the object of his greatest affection is descended from a gibbering idiot and a ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... getting me fired from this job as I ever got. He snarled and growled at me. He told the managing editor that he was an ignoramus and the M.E., believe it or not, took it, took it like a little lamb, Jimmy. Dije ever hear anybody call the M.E. an idiot and get ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... two children, Thomas and a daughter two years older, by keeping a small school for girls. At the age of five years the boy was sent to the Pyle Street School, where the master, unable to teach him anything and deciding that he was an idiot, dismissed him. For a year and a half afterward he was so regarded. During this time he was often subjected to paroxysms of grief which were expressed generally in silent tears, but sometimes in cries continued for many hours. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... terrible lesson to his ambitious father; he could not bear the sight of his promising child, changed to a feeble idiot, and he sent him away to Plumfield, scarcely hoping that he could be helped, but sure that he would be kindly treated. Quite docile and harmless was Billy, and it was pitiful to see how hard he tried to learn, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... the sharp girl. "Never say 'she' for a person's name. Well, if your mother saw the advertisement then you are a One Only at reduced terms, and I knew you were directly I saw you. Now, tell me. Don't blink—unless of course you're an idiot; all idiots blink. Tell me. Was that dress made for you or was it ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... the drift on all fours, concerned only with learning whether I was badly hurt. On my assurance that unless his back and legs and arms were broken, there was no damage done, he straightened up and declared he was unhurt but dreadfully humiliated. "How could a man be such a condemned idiot as to plunge head-first against a barricade like that?" This was the question suggested to his mind, only he did not say "condemned idiot" exactly, but he apologized for the emphatic words he did use, and as they do not look well in print, they need ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... certain that he had stuck his blade into his enemy as a gardener that he has stuck his spade into the ground. Yet the Marquis sprang back from the stroke without a stagger, and Syme stood staring at his own sword-point like an idiot. There was no blood on it ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... whatever he receives." His face assumed the expression of a man remembering a bad taste in his mouth. "That's how we found him out, Mr. Malone," he said. "It's rather startling to look at a blithering idiot and have him suddenly repeat the very thought that's ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... been waiting for me to look at him all through dinner. Shall I do it, and you can see what an idiot he looks? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... on. I'm much obliged to you for your offer. I've enough money for the present. I've about my person some forty pounds' worth of British gold, and the same amount, say, of the toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They'll see me through together! After they're gone I shall lay my head in some English churchyard, beside some ivied tower, beneath an old ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... appearance excluding the suspicion of mere sly malice, I came to the conclusion that he was simply the most tactless idiot on earth. I almost despised myself for the weakness of attempting to enlighten his common understanding. I started to explain that I did not think anything whatever. Hamilton was not worth a thought. What such an offensive loafer . . . "Aye! that ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... make money, I say, at some sensible work? Make money for me, will you? I'll force you out to make money at some work by which there's money to be made; not the like of that idiot writing of yours, curse it. Answer me, and tell me you'll go out and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... in yere, right through this door! An' every mother's son of 'em, hed a cyard. I know what I 'm a-talkin' about, you miserable third-class idiot, an' if you give me any more of your lip I 'll paste you good an' proper. Go back thar whar you belong, an' tind to your part of this ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... a sudden, flashing glance of indignation. "Then she was a donkey, Scott, a fool—an idiot!" she declared, with trembling vehemence. "I'd like—oh, how I'd ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... he 's under—just about a minute— I take advantage of the fact to say His fishy carcase has no virtue in it The gunning idiot's worthless hire to pay. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... everything I said. Mrs. Smith (such bosh putting "de Yorburgh" on!) sat on a big sofa with Lord Valmond, and she opened and shut her eyes at him, and Jane Roose says she takes every one's friend away; and Lord George Lane came up, and we talked, and he wasn't such an idiot as at dinner, and he has nice teeth. All the rest, except the Rooses and me, are married—the women, I mean—except Miss La Touche, but she is just the same, because she sits with the married lot, and they all chat together, ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... may be the fact—how often the lunatic also lives by faith? Are not the forms of madness most frequently those of love and religion? Certainly, if there be a God, he does not forget his frenzied offspring; certainly he is more tender over them than any mother over her idiot darling; certainly he sees in them what the eye of brother or sister cannot see. But some of them, at least, have not enough of such support to be able to go on living; and, for my part, I confess I rejoice as often as I hear that one has succeeded in breaking his ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the midst of his frenzy, suddenly quieted down. This was the idiot butcher of whom people had been chattering. No use to ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... "Fool! idiot!" old Beelzebub grinned as he spoke, And stamp'd on the scaffold in ire; The painter grew pale, for he knew it no joke, 'Twas a terrible height, and the scaffolding broke; And the devil could wish it ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... he said, with a sneer. 'And you come here to tell me that! You infernal idiot! You come here to put yourself in my power like this! Courtenay Ivor, I always knew you were an ass, but I didn't ever know you were quite such a born idiot of a fellow as that. Hold back there, you image!' With a rapid dart, before you could see what he was doing, he passed a wire ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... indicated that would do—"who would call her husband an idiot aloud before a dinner-table, and quarrel like a fishwife ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... such which are never completed. I felt that it was of joy—of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to perfect—to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile—an idiot. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the sergeants coming on board this morning at six o'clock. The idiot missed us this morning and of course that dished us. The sergeants got in wrong. As I am only a private, and therefore ignorant and simple according to the military code, and, being with non-commissioned officers who are supposed ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... Venetia the Austrian seaplanes are making the same sort of idiot raid on lighted places that the Zeppelins have been making over England. These raids do no effective military work. What conceivable military advantage can there be in dropping bombs into a marketing crowd? It is a sort of anti-Teutonic ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... Country's Gifted Minds," and "Mrs. Widesworth is requested to write any maxim which her experience of life may have suggested on page 209 of this volume, just between the remarks of the Living Skeleton and the autograph of the Idiot Albino." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... The idiot! Does the simpleton really think that everybody has read all he has written? Does he really believe that everybody remembers all of his, writer's, words he may happen to have read? At one of those famous dinners of the Phi Beta Kappa Society; where no reporter ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... much his younger, perhaps inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labour of book writing; and if he be not repulsed or slighted, must appear in print like a Punie with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety that he is no idiot or seducer, it cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... psychosis is that, when they are closed, the soul cannot be seen." (American Journal of Psychology, vol. ix, No. 3, 1898.) The instinctive and unreasoned character of this act is further shown by its occurrence in idiots. Naecke mentions that he once had occasion to examine the abdomen of an idiot, who, thereupon, attempted to draw down his shirt with the left hand, while with the right he ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to be got Which after proves an idiot When folk perceive it thriveth not, The fault therein to smother, Some silly, doting, brainless calf That understands things by the half, Say that the Fairy left this oaf And took away ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... upon," said Lawrence, "she wouldn't have allowed Mark to see her so often. A woman who lives alone! Why on earth couldn't you leave her to stew in her own juice? I don't wish to see my brother-in-law make an idiot of himself." ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... I said, because one is always expected to announce some result of observation of the atmosphere. It shows at once whether or not one is an idiot. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... calling any human being a brute, for no one, I believe, is sunk so low, but there is some spark of humanity, some spark of what St. Paul calls "the spirit," left in him, which may be fanned into a flame and conquer, and raise and save the man at last—unless he be a mere idiot—or that most unhappy and brutal of all beings, a ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury— ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... from lip to lip, growing in sensation and absurdity as they went. A report, telegraphed by an anonymous idiot from Liverpool, to the effect that six air-ships had appeared over the Mersey, and demanded a ransom of L10,000,000 from the town, was eagerly seized on by the cheaper evening papers, which rushed out edition after edition on the strength of it, until the St. James's ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... "Fool, dray-horse, coxcomb, idiot!" It was Dromio of Syracuse unconsciously insulting ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... try to equivocate, you shining idiot! For now you see for yourself you are talking nonsense. And I repeat that such unheard-of nonsense ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... folly had wholly gone. There—I have written those words, but I have no sooner written than I repent them. It is not a folly for a boy to be honestly in love, as I was in love with Barbara. I was silly, if you please—a moon-struck, calf-loving idiot, if you like—but in all that hot noon of my madness there never was an unclean thought in my mind nor an unclean prompting of the body. However, all that was past and done with. My liver was washed clean of that passion; it had not left a spot upon my heart. I have only loved two ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... I was, I did not see his game. No one ever does see Addicks' game till it is too late, for no one but a moral idiot would play the game Addicks plays, and, thank heaven, moral idiots are so rare in life that it is not worth while figuring out the formula ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... portrait-painter without faults. His portraits are marred in several cases by the intrusion of his own personality with its "My good man" and "My little man" air. His human beings have a way of becoming either lifeless or absurd when they talk. The Leech-Gatherer and The Idiot Boy are not the only poems of Wordsworth that are injured by the insertion of banal dialogue. It is as though there were, despite his passion for liberty, equality, and fraternity, a certain gaucherie ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... James. "You can't tell with a man of that sort. He can be a March hare if he's in the mood. He'd as soon shoot a Turk as a monkey, or keep two women as half a dozen. By the by, Lucy," and the eyeglass went out like a falling star, "don't let that sentimental idiot make too much of ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... I'm sure it's not any wish of mine that I'm born with inclinations for better things. If I could be born again, and had the designing of myself, I'd be born the lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty of companionship, or I'd be born an idiot, which would ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... sternly forbidden. They cannot even touch him without suffering the consequences. It would seem as if Nature, when she made this block of stupidity in a world of wits, provided for him tenderly, as she would for a half-witted or idiot child. He is the only wild creature for whom starvation has no terrors. All the forest is his storehouse. Buds and tender shoots delight him in their season; and when the cold becomes bitter in its intensity, and the snow packs deep, and all other creatures grow gaunt and savage in their ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... which for many years served as a model of intelligence and industry in the school-readers, has been proven to be a doddering idiot and a waster of time and effort. The owl to-day is hooted at. Chautauqua conventions have abandoned culture and adopted diabolo. Graybeards give glowing testimonials to the venders of patent hair-restorers. ...
— Options • O. Henry
... However, when they pressed me close I told them every whit; and some thought that I had spoken falsely and derided me and others that I was daft and hare-brained and my words were the wild pratings of an idiot or the drivel of dreams. The youngsters made abundant fun of me and laughed to think that I, who never in my born days had sighted a golden coin, should tell how I had gotten so many Ashrafis, and how a kite had flown away with them. My ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... this idiot here, I am going to give her to an ex-secret judge, at present a smuggler in the Pyrenees at Oleron. He can do what he pleases with her—make her a servant in his posada, for instance. I care not, so that my ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... clothes for, idiot of a woman! To put on, to wear. I shall habit myself as a gentleman. ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... a shop, I waited in the street, and I watched you through the window taking off your gloves and counting the change on the counter. Then you rang at Madame Tuvache's; you were let in, and I stood like an idiot in front of the great heavy door that had closed ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... was encouraged by her parents to study so much that her brain gave way, and she is now an idiot. This is a sad result, but the parents must find some consolation in the thought that they have ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... think anything yet," he said. "I don't know enough. Wait until I've learned a bit more—if you're not sick of teaching such an idiot." ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... 380 Where Beauty seems to dwell, nor once inquire Where is the sanction of eternal Truth, Or where the seal of undeceitful Good, To save your search from folly! Wanting these, Lo! Beauty withers in your void embrace, And with the glittering of an idiot's toy Did Fancy mock your vows. Nor let the gleam Of youthful hope that shines upon your hearts, Be chill'd or clouded at this awful task, To learn the lore of undeceitful Good, 390 And Truth eternal. ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... goodness' sake drop that awful face! It absolutely gives me spasms!" hinnied Magsie. "It's the very image of a village idiot who used to terrify me when I was a kiddie. Don't look at me with those horrid eyes! I shall ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... "You young idiot," he growled, "stay where you are. 'Twould be a useless sacrifice. You'll do more good by staying here, and helping to cover the retreat of the women should we have to ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... a typical alcoholic family one in which the first three children were healthy, the fourth was of defective intelligence, the fifth was an epileptic idiot, the sixth was dead born, and finally the productive career ended with ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... the plan of the Lyrical Ballads; [Footnote: Published in 1798. It opened with the Ancient Mariner and closed with Wordsworth's lines on Tintern Abbey. Among other poems written in Wordsworth's simplest style were The Idiot Boy, The Thorn, and We are Seven.] in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... hunting. I was sometimes at a loss to hear the "coo-ee" or call of my natives. Fortunate men! they did not even understand what deafness meant. Lunacy also was unknown among them, and such a thing as suicide no native can possibly grasp or understand. In all my wanderings I only met one idiot or demented person. He had been struck by a falling tree, and was worshipped ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the young man whose duty it is to go to dinners and afternoon parties, this terrible weakness will again overcome him. He has done well at college, can make a very good speech at the club suppers, but at the door of a parlor he feels himself a drivelling idiot. He assumes a courage, if he has it not, and dashes into a room (which is full of people) as he would attack a forlorn hope. There is safety in numbers, and he retires ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... step further, and tell me why Adam ate another, he shall have my India-coloured silk, broidered with golden lions and vultures, whereof I had meant to make me a new gown for this next Michaelmas feast. It doth seem as if none but a very idiot could have let in evil and sin and sorrow and pain all over this world, for the sake of a sweet apple. It must have been sweet, I should think, because it grew in Eden. But was there never another in all the garden save only ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... whose use the pregnant suns are poised With idiot moons and stars retracing stars? Creep thou betweene—thy coming's all unnoised. Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars. Heir to these tumults, this affright, that fraye (By Adam's, fathers', own, sin bound alway); Peer up, draw out thy horoscope and say Which ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... been asleep," said the idiot, with widely opened eyes. "There have been great faces coming and going—close to my face, and then a mile away. That's sleep, eh? I dreamed just now that something—it was in the shape of a man—followed me and wouldn't let me be. It came creeping on to worry me, nearer and nearer. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... white vestments, entered, followed by a large retinue. Startled at such pomp, I thought that the Praetor had arrived, so I put my bare feet upon the floor and started to get up, but Agamemnon laughed at my anxiety and said, "Keep your seat, you idiot, it's only Habinnas the sevir; he's a stone mason, and if report speaks true, he makes the finest tombstones imaginable." Reassured by this information, I lay back upon my couch and watched Habinnas' entrance with great curiosity. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... "but I was deceived, I was robbed! It was that idiot Sicardot who let me in for that by swearing that the Napoleonists would be triumphant. I thought I was only making an advance. But the old dolt will have to repay ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the defence of these—if it was impious to struggle for their abrogation, I have indeed led an ungodly life.... To read, however, his Lordship a lesson of good manners, I had prepared for him a chastisement which would have been echoed from the Segrave who banqueteth in the castle,[129] to the idiot who spitteth over ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... pretty bad wrong 'un," said Paul. "We hadn't been going a fortnight before he asked me to accept half salary, swearing he would make it up, with a rise, as soon as business got better. Like an idiot, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... little idiot," she said, giving me a tender little shake that robbed the words of their harshness, "can't you see that ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... idiot has proposed to her here, on board, and she has refused him, and now he has to face the fury of the elements to keep out ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the writer only,[*] not the tenderness of the idiot who will always be deceived, not the softness towards other people's troubles which cause all my misfortunes to come from my holding out my hand to weak people who are falling into disaster. In 1827 I help a ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars |
