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Insolence   Listen
noun
Insolence  n.  
1.
The quality of being unusual or novel. (Obs.)
2.
The quality of being insolent; pride or haughtiness manifested in contemptuous and overbearing treatment of others; arrogant contempt; brutal impudence. "Flown with insolence and wine."
3.
Insolent conduct or treatment; insult. "Loaded with fetters and insolences from the soldiers."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Insolence" Quotes from Famous Books



... silly and hot-headed in those days, and my wetting had not disposed me to be laughed at. In this fellow I saw a confederate of Gib's, and if I had lost one I had the other. So I marched up to him and very roundly damned his insolence. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... to him. "You have said too much about Archibald, Marquis of Argile," I said. "A week or two ago, the quarrel was more properly M'Iver's; now that he's severed by his own act from the clan, I'm ready to take his place and chastise you for your insolence. Are you willing, John?" I asked, turning ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort to bring ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... upon his antagonist. But his heart failed, he sheathed his sword, turned his back in gloomy silence, and spoke not until he reached the door, when, turning round, he said, with a deep oath, "If I be not avenged of you for this insolence ere many days go by, I would the gallows had my body and the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... to the degradation of having suffered the insult of the greasy burgher. Then with a revulsion of feeling, her soul sickened at the injustice of letting Monsieur Gabriel pay the penalty of the pastor's wicked insolence, and she remembered that her friend would be exposed to the horrified reprobation of the sober townsfolk; nay, more, he might even be ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... each, deserves the hatred of all. Pray remember—what 188 you surely cannot forget—that the Huns do not overthrow nations by means of war, where there is an equal chance, but assail them by treachery, which is a greater cause for anxiety. To say nothing about ourselves, can you suffer such insolence to go unpunished? Since you are mighty in arms, give heed to your own danger and join hands with us in common. Bear aid also to the Empire, of which you hold a part. If you would learn how needful such an alliance is for us, look into the plans of ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... her more than rude greeting, she coolly sat down beside Nina. "Will you make me a cup of tea? I like it without sugar and with very little cream." She did not smile, and she did not say "please." Her bearing was a fair example of the cold, impersonal insolence of which Italian women of fashion are capable ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... lives. The old Romans knew better; to keep people quiet they filled their bellies. Those fools—" he jerked his head backwards with disgust; I thought, of the shawls and the high combs and the hair gleaming black under lace and the wasp-waists of the young men and the insolence of black eyes above the flashing wheels of the carriages, "—those fools give only circuses. Do you people in the outside world realize that we in Andalusia starve, that we have starved for generations, that those black bulls for the circuses may ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... appealed so touchingly to the charitable sympathies of Gil Blas, taking aim at him from the roadside with a long-barrelled musket. The intentness and directness of his silent appeal, his close and unrelenting attack upon your individuality, respectful as it seemed, was the very flower of insolence; or, if you give it a possibly truer interpretation, it was the tyrannical effort of a man endowed with great natural force of character to constrain your reluctant will to his purpose. Apparently, he had staked his salvation upon ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that she had no friends; that everybody had deserted her; that she was alone in the world? As he thought of it all, the whole thing seemed to him to be too terrible for reality. What a tragedy was that she had told him! He thought of the man's insolence to the woman whom he had married and sworn to love, then of his cruelty, his fiendish, hellish cruelty; and lastly of his terrible punishment. "I stuck to him through it all," she had said to him; and then he endeavored to ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will ...
— Symposium • Plato

... for you what he certainly wouldn't do for me, father. Daisy can go with you to the Embassy: I'll stay and look after Mrs. Dampier: she mustn't be left alone, exposed to the Poulains' insolence." ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... most serious disputes of these extraordinary associates. The sarcasms of the King soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet. D'Arnaud and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for the sake of a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence of a master; but Voltaire was of another order. He knew that he was a potentate as well as Frederic, that his European reputation, and his incomparable power of covering whatever he hated with ridicule, made him an object of dread even ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... 'prodding of his eel,' or 'nicking of his man,' a method of getting straight at the riddle of the fellow by the test of how long he could endure a flat mute stare and return look for look unblinking. The act of smoking fortifies and partly covers the insolence. But if by chance an equable, not too narrowly focussed, counterstare is met, our impertinent inquisitor may resemble the fisherman pulled into deep waters by his fish. Woodseer perused his man, he was not attempting to fathom him: he had besides other stuff in his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... then silently in the dead of night to turn the water of the river and make his attack. It fell out as he hoped and wished. The festival was held with even greater pomp and splendor than usual; for Belshazzar, with the natural insolence of youth, to mark his contempt of the besieging army, abandoned himself wholly to the delights of the season, and himself entertained a thousand lords in his palace. Elsewhere the rest of the population was occupied in feasting and dancing. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... do you know of her—is she an old acquaintance?" asked Mrs. Graham, throwing into her manner as much of insolence as possible. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... nations. Even the fops in their foppishness were of a magnitude in harmony with their period. They could promote dandyism to a fine art and win immortality by perfecting the role. Their affectation became an adjunct of their greatness, their eccentricity an assumption of supremacy; their very insolence was a right divine before which the common herd ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... be just to Mirth. Let us be thankful that we have in Wit a power before which the pride of wealth and the insolence of office are abased; which can transfix bigotry and tyranny with arrows of lightning; which can strike its object over thousands of miles of space, across thousands of years of time; and which, through its sway over an universal ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... only twenty years ago that this part of the country was seized by the British without bloodshed, and the foolish and dissolute King Theebaw was made prisoner for his stupid insolence, and deported, with his two wives, to India, where they are still spending their days in retirement. Upper Burma has, however, put on new beauty and prosperity since the British have taken it over; and the people are abundantly satisfied ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... Malthe, of ancient noblesse, but in low circumstances, was in a coffee-house at Paris, where was Julien, the great manufacturer at the Gobelins, of the fine tapestry, so much distinguished both for the figures and the colours. The chevalier's carriage was very old. Says Julien, with a plebeian insolence, 'I think, sir, you had better have your carriage new painted.' The chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered, 'Well, sir. you may take it home and DYE it!' All the coffee-house rejoiced ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery, if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the memory of BOATSWAIN, a dog, Who was born at Newfoundland, ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... his memorable struggle with the Virginia aristocracy. In the 18th century through the House of Burgesses its influence slowly but steadily advanced. Governor Spotswood had once to beg the pardon of the Burgesses for the insolence of the members of the Council in wearing their hats in the presence of a committee of the House.[73] Governor Dinwiddie expressed his surprise, when the mace bearer one day entered the supreme court, and demanded that one of the ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the streets of the City of Insolence, thirsting for the sight of a stranger face. For the City is a desert of familiar types as thick and alike as the grains in a sand-storm; and you grow to hate them as you do a friend who is always by you, or one of your ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... "Instructions on Government," to which we have above alluded. In this work the author seizes every opportunity to lecture the king, to give him advice, and to rebuke him. According to Dobrovsky, his boldness not unfrequently degenerates into coarseness and insolence. It is an amusing reproach, which among others he brings against the king, that he had net one camel, whilst Job had six thousand. The same individual wrote also a large work in Latin, a kind of Cyclopaedia, ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... think it an act of insolence to flatter you," he said. "If you knew the true reason why I hesitated to accept Lady Loring's invitation—if I could own to you the new hope for myself that has brought me here—you would feel, as I feel, that I have been only speaking the truth. I ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... mayn't." Richard had turned pale before the calm insolence of the other. "You know quite well what you said and if you are a gentleman you will apologise— If you aren't you won't and I will deal with you in ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... handsome black stared steadily at Miles, who returned the compliment as steadily, not being sure whether curiosity or insolence lay at the foundation ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... ran across the street, quickly passing in front of a carriage. She was ashamed of her previous desire to be the lady in the carriage she had seen coming from the Prater. It seemed as though the man's insolence had been her punishment. No, no, she was a respectable woman; in the depth of her soul she had an aversion to everything that savoured of the insolent.... No, she could no longer stay in Vienna, where ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... occupants of the lawn were half a dozen sophomores clustered together at one end. Blanche Haight was among them, and at sight of Peggy she turned her back pointedly, and whispered to the others. They turned with one accord and stared at Peggy, with a cool insolence that made her blood boil within her and surge up in angry red to her forehead. She could not do anything about it; they had a right to stare, if they had no better manners. She returned the look ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... manoeuvre in the front seat was merely for the purpose of obtaining a prolonged stare at Natalie. The insolence of the little, swimming, pig-eyes infuriated Garth. The young man opposite him too, a sullen, scowling bravo, was staring boldly at Natalie. Garth stiffened himself to play ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... kindly, cheery, generous turn, to say that a green field, with buttercups, would answer all the purposes of Lancashire operatives, and that they did not know what to do with themselves when they came among the mountains, that the innocent insolence could do no harm. It became a fixed sentiment when she alone survived to uphold it, and one demonstration of it amused the whole neighborhood in a good-natured way. "People from Birthwaite" were the bugbear—Birthwaite being the end of the railway. In the Summer of 1857, Mrs. Wordsworth's companion ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... a new question. No Greek had ever asked it openly before. To Sparta it seemed the extreme of insolence and insult. What daring stranger was this who presumed to question her right to absolute control of Laconia? No speech was made in her defence. Spartans never made speeches. They prided themselves on their few ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... "Why—why—Whoever heard of such insolence?" sputtered Mr. Downes. "You see, Mary, what this young ruffian has done to poor Paul? Stand still, will you?" he added, jerking Paul around as he tried to untie the cod line. Paul began to snivel; I reckon his father ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... and a small mouth with pouting lips. The tarboosh he wore tilted at an angle heightened the general effect of arrogant self-esteem. He was an illustration of the ancient mystery—how is it that a man with such a face, and such insolence written all over him, can become a leader of other men and persuade them to hatch the eggs of treachery that he lays like ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... "My dear young lady," he said, his tone the extreme of insolence, "I can't come no other time. Th' business I got t' do has got t' be done t'-day. I might as well tell you that my name's Matthews—Nick Matthews. This claim you're on is mine, an' I mean t' have it. What's more, I mean ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... the pretty, lovelock-shaded face, she was staggered the look it wore was such a very innocent and undisturbed one. At the moment, the only solution to be reached seemed to be that this was the style of young people in Nevada, and that it was ignorance and not insolence she had to do battle with—which, indeed, ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... shall answer for your damned insolence,' said the marquis, and, lifting his riding-whip from the table where he had laid ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... not know the people he was dealing with. Stung with the injustice of the demand, and deeply incensed by the insolence of the commandant, the village council secretly resolved that they would not be slaves to these base intruders, but would cut them off to a man. The oldest chief suggested the following plan. On the day fixed ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... not think himself imposed upon by a forgery, might well consider himself outraged. It was a letter of this kind which was sent by the Secretary of State to the Minister Plenipotentiary to the Empire of Austria. Not quite all the vulgar insolence of the M'Crackin letter was repeated. Mr. Seward did not ask Mr. Motley to deny or confirm the assertion of the letter that he was a "thorough flunky" and "un-American functionary." But he did insult him with various questions suggested by ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... to encroach. All the branches, she sometimes fancied, stretched one way—towards their tiny cottage and garden, as though it sought to draw them in and merge them in itself. Its great, deep-breathing soul resented the mockery, the insolence, the irritation of the prim garden at its very gates. It would absorb and smother them if it could. And every wind that blew its thundering message over the huge sounding-board of the million, shaking trees conveyed the purpose that it had. They had angered its great ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood

... the Cowpens, on the 17th of January, 1781, in which General Morgan, with an inferior force, chastised the temerity and insolence of Tarleton, General Davidson was actively engaged in assembling the militia of his district to aid General Greene in impeding the advance of the British army in pursuit of General Morgan, encumbered with more than five hundred prisoners, on his way to Virginia. ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... an officer of the United States, to see that no soldier strays from camp unauthorizedly, or depredates upon private property. I will take your names, and report you, first for straggling, secondly for insolence!" ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... objects so as to fill our souls with a fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to its own measure, as ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... unwrapped the newspaper and exposed the unfortunate Gigerl to view. Then with both hands he set it up before him, raising the limp figure from the waist, and trying to put it into position, until it almost recovered something of its old look of insolence, though the eye-glass was broken and the little white hat sadly battered. The three men contemplated it in silence, and the other guests turned curious glances towards it. Dumnoff, as usual, ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... is refined. He permits "no maggots in a dead dog." He substitutes "trichinae in prospective pork." Fashionable patrons will appreciate this. They cherish poodles, particularly post-mortem; they disdain swine. Mr. FECHTER is polite. He excludes "the insolence of office," and "the cutpurse of the empire and the rule." Collector BAILEY'S "fetch" sits in front. Mr. FECHTER is fastidious. He omits the prefatory remarks to "assume a virtue," but urges his mother to seek relief in Chicago. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... you that you might gather my roses? Was it not enough that I allowed you to be in my palace and was kind to you? This is the way you show your gratitude, by stealing my flowers! But your insolence shall not go unpunished." The merchant, terrified by these furious words, dropped the fatal rose, and, throwing himself on his knees, cried: "Pardon me, noble sir. I am truly grateful to you for your hospitality, which was so magnificent that I could not imagine that you would ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... for different reasons. Some, and they belonged to the honnetes gens, were glad to see de Mezy rebuked and hoped that he would be punished; others, the following of Bigot, Cadet, Pean and their corrupt crowd, were eager to see the Bostonnais suffer for his insolence to one of their number. But most of them, both the French of old France and the French of Canada, chivalric of heart, were resolved ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... I could have borne the faintness and oppression caused by the odor of the gas better than that dark, unshrinking glance. I dreaded the anger of Ernest on his return. I feared he would openly resent an insolence so publicly and perseveringly displayed. We were side by side, with only the low partition of the boxes between us, so near that I felt his burning breath on my cheek,—a breath in which the strong perfume of orris-root could not overcome the fumes of the narcotic weed. I tried to move ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... immediately fell, served not so much to extinguish the flames, as the violent wind which then arose contributed to kindle them. Those of Achen, proud of that action, appeared next morning on their decks, letting fly their pompous streamers, and shouting, as if already they were victorious. But their insolence was soon checked; the cannon from the fortress forced them to retire as far off as the isle of Upe. In the mean time, seven poor fishermen, who had been out all night about their employment, and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... it was my wish to return to London, as I found I was now at a less distance from that city than from Dartford. The post-boys made much resistance to my desire, and even behaved with an extreme degree of insolence, but our French servant, backed by the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... you like but consider that she has behaved very badly—with extreme insolence; but I don't want to influence you." This in a tone of magnanimity, as he began to write with an air of ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... to his feet with a look of majesty which, in an instant, awed the insolence of the offender. Never had he been faced by such defiance, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... Favor, the French Revolution. Causes of its Popularity. Justification of the Administration's Policy. France Violates the Treaty. Genet's High-handed Action. His Insolence and Final Removal. Effect of Jay's Treaty upon France. Further Overtures to France. Result. Anti-federalists Confounded. War Feeling in this Country. Adams's ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... grave, I saw his dust strewn on the air, his ashes Whirled through the windy streets like common straws To plague a beggar's eyesight, and his head, That gentle head, set on the prison spike, For the vile rabble in their insolence To ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... an ill-natured, blind man. He has a cruel stepmother and a selfish, petulant younger brother. This boy, the pet of his parents, treated Shun with insolence; and the father and mother joined in persecuting the elder son. Shun, without showing resentment, cried aloud to Heaven and obtained [Page 74] patience to bear their harshness. By duty and affection he has won ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... the assent was ready enough; but on the other two, which looked to the carrying out of the treaty and the making of a treaty of commerce, there was no satisfaction. Morris, who was as high-spirited as he was able, was irritated by the indifference and hardly concealed insolence shown to him and his business. It was the fit beginning of the conduct by which England for nearly a century has succeeded in alienating the good-will of the people of the United States. Such a policy was neither generous nor intelligent, and politically it was a gross blunder. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... cruelties were exaggerated by the early travellers, who heard only the narratives of the old enemies of the Caribs. It is not always the vanquished solely, who are calumniated by their contemporaries; the insolence of the conquerors is punished by the catalogue ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... of the evening she scarce knew what passed, for she attended to nothing; Mr Monckton might watch, and Mr Briggs might exhort her, Sir Robert might display his insolence, or Mr Marriot his gallantry,— all was equally indifferent, and equally unheeded; and before half the company left the house, she retired ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... certain people always grow splenetic— Why, goodness knows—at everything pathetic, And scoff it down. We all know how, of late, An unfledged, upstart undergraduate Presumed, with brazen insolence, to declare That "William ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in the manner and voice of the other that roused her as much as his callousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All her mixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point—she loathed him; ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... favoured by fortune as to have your pity? Infinitely obliged, my cousin Anne! But these sentiments are not always reciprocal, and I warn you that the day when I set my foot on your neck, the spine shall break. Are you acquainted with the properties of the spine?" he asked, with an insolence beyond qualification. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... confounded thing to be in love with one, who is the daughter, the sister, the niece, of a family, I must eternally despise? And, the devil of it, that love increasing with her—what shall I call it?—'Tis not scorn:—'Tis not pride:—'Tis not the insolence of an adored beauty:—But 'tis to virtue, it seems, that my difficulties are owin; and I pay for not being a sly sinner, an hypocrite; for being regardless of my reputation; for permittin slander to open its mouth against me. But is it necessary for such a one as I, who have been used to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... sat was the first place—the rest were nowhere. One felt this to be his unalterable conviction. He was neither civil nor uncivil. He was quiet. He allowed his 'boy'—an overfed young negro from the coast—to treat the white men, under his very eyes, with provoking insolence. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... religious contest, which did not fall under their jurisdiction; and, thirdly, banishing their persons, and abrogating their power. He afterwards found it necessary to the peace of his dominions to recall and reinstate those venerable patriots; and being convinced of the intolerable insolence and turbulent spirit of the archbishop of Paris, had exiled that prelate in his turn. He was no sooner re-admitted to his function, than he resumed his former conduct, touching the denial of the sacraments to those who refused to acknowledge the bull Unigenitus: he even acted with redoubled ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... and it is not surprising that so brave a seaman gradually rose to the rank of Commodore in the United States navy. He was the hero of many subsequent brilliant exploits, principally in foreign waters, and effectually showed the nations of Europe how to put an end to the piracy and insolence of the Barbary States, which had lasted for nearly three centuries. He was the recipient of many distinguished honors, and was presented with a sword by Congress for his share in the destruction of the "Philadelphia," ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... of noting the small number of points of any consequence on which I differ from you. These relate chiefly to India; though on that subject also I agree with you to a much greater extent than I differ. Not only do I most cordially sympathize with all you say about the insolence of the English even in India to the native population, which has now become not only a disgrace, but, as you have so usefully shown, a danger to our dominion there; but I have been much struck by the sagacity which, in so short a stay as yours ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... her inside, watching her graceful movements, and attempting, with his free-and-easy insolence, to make friendly advances, but, seeing that she refused to notice him, he ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... I roared. "You told him that I ran away? Damn your insolence! I'll break every bone in your body for this!" I cried, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... predicted. Meteoric success in the House of Commons is not, indeed, so rare as it was twenty years ago, for the studied rhetoric which served our great-grandfathers in their ambitious pursuit of notoriety has given place to the arts of audacity, innovation, and the sublime courage of youthful insolence, which have occasionally worked wonders in our ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... by other hands. Such practices were encouraged by his passive indifference and the contemporary condition of the law of copyright. He cannot be credited with any responsibility for the publication of Thorpe's collection of his sonnets in 1609. With characteristic insolence Thorpe took the added liberty of appending a previously unprinted poem of forty-nine seven-line stanzas (the metre of 'Lucrece') entitled 'A Lover's Complaint,' in which a girl laments her betrayal by a deceitful youth. The poem, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... flying to the well-known outlets, they are overpowered by the dread onset of the Lion; who, after he was wearied with slaughter, called forth the Ass {from his retreat}, and bade him cease his clamour. On this the other, in his insolence, {inquired}: "What think you of the assistance given by my voice?" "Excellent!" said {the Lion}, "so much so, that if I had not been acquainted with your spirit and your race, I should have fled ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... pleasant, though, to dream of welcoming George and Gibbes back. Jimmy I could not see; and George was in deep mourning. I dreamed of fainting when I saw him (a novel sensation, since I never experienced it awake), but I speedily came to, and insisted on his "pulling Henry Walsh's red hair for his insolence," which he promised to do instantly. How absurd! Dreams! dreams! That pathetic "Miss Sarah, do you ever dream?" comes vividly back to me sometimes. Dream? Don't I! Not the dreams that he meant; but royal, purple dreams, that De Quincey could not purchase with his opium; dreams that ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... gathering in the houses to discuss and conjecture. And presently, sauntering along the street in a careless fashion, his spurs trailing in the dust, came Nicholas Temple. He stopped before the house and stared at me with a fine insolence, and I wondered whether I myself had not been too hasty in reclaiming him. A greeting died on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... retired to a stateroom to escape their rudeness. After her withdrawal, Will entered into conversation with a gentleman from Indiana, who had been very polite to him, and asked him if he knew the reason for the insolence of the excursion party. The gentleman hesitated a moment, and ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... great caress, who frown on me.' 'Has heaven reserv'd in pity to the poor, No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore? No secret island in the boundless main? No peaceful desert yet unclaim'd by Spain? Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, And bear Oppression's insolence no more[373].' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... insolence of this man, the marionette thrust back his hat with a bold sweep of his hand, as if to say, "Now I shall show you who I am, and who I was." Pinocchio then hastened toward the river, reaching the bank at the very moment when the hunters had started a large ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini

... generally; and when the effects break out in insolence and disobedience, then there ensues a scene. If you go there you will witness them occasionally, and I assure you they are not edifying. You must endeavour to train the girls to something better than they have been ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... civility," I answered with equal insolence. "I've done nothing for which I've felt the need of your forgiveness, Miss Van Buren; but if you think I have, pray tell me once for all what it was, that I may ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... that youre lorde also yee se drynkynge, 92 Looke that ye be in riht{e} stable sylence With{e}-oute lowde lauht{e}re or Iangelynge, Rovnynge, Iapynge, or other Insolence. Yiff he komau{n}de also in his presence 96 Yow forto sytte, fulfill{e} his wylle belyve, And for youre seete, looke nat ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... Cosa knew the untamable sauciness of the Vizcayan breed, and knew as well the loyalty that went with it. "Son," he said seriously, "what do you know of this matter?" The boy put aside his insolence and spoke gravely. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... revolt. From Alexandria he went into Syria, and thence to Pontus, induced by intelligence which he had received respecting Pharnaces. This prince, who was son of the great Mithridates, had seized the opportunity which the distraction of the times offered for making war upon his neighbours, and his insolence and fierceness had grown with his success. Caesar, however, within five days after entering his country, and four hours after coming in sight of him, overthrew him in one decisive battle. Upon which, he frequently remarked to those about ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... of the firm which has the honour of publishing Meredith's novels was interviewed by the Daily Mail on the day after his death. The gentleman interviewed gave vent to the usual insolence about our own times. "He belonged," said the gentleman, "to a very different age from the modern writer—an age before the literary agent; and with Mr. Meredith the feeling of intimacy as between author and publisher—the feeling ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... amongst the gentlemen and ladies in the greenroom, I saw none but doubtful faces: and the manager (a very flippant, not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who himself on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a funeral) had the insolence to say to me, "For Heaven's sake, Mr. Warrington, go and get a glass of punch at the Bedford, and don't frighten us all here ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... consciousness some symbolic picture of the world. To have reverted to this constructive process and studied its stages is an interesting achievement; but the construction is already made by common-sense and science, and it was visionary insolence in the Germans to propose to make that construction otherwise. Retrospective self-consciousness is dearly bought if it inhibits the intellect and embarrasses the inferences which, in its spontaneous operation, it has known perfectly how to make. In the heat of scientific ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... a feather," said the young priest. "Not that I class myself with Doctors and blood-hounds. You should have allowed Tiger to give those fellows a lesson they would remember, Danton. Their drunken insolence ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... her chair, and Lady Caroom watched her approach with lifted eyebrows and a stare of well-bred and languid insolence. Lord Arranmore laid down his cue and rose at once ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... in company with an English lady of title, who gave me a very amusing instance of the insolence of the Belgian servants. She had a large family to bring up on a limited income, and had taken up her abode at Brussels. It should be observed that the Belgians treat their servants like dogs, and yet it is only with the Belgians that they will behave well. This lady, finding her ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... an evidence of excitement, had all the effect of studied insolence. Judge Ackroyd's ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... raised as to our powers did more to wrap them in terror, by wrapping them in uncertainty, than could have been effected by the sharpest definitions of the law from the Quarter Sessions. We, on our parts, (we, the collective mail, I mean,) did our utmost to exalt the idea of our privileges by the insolence with which we wielded them. Whether this insolence rested upon law that gave it a sanction, or upon conscious power, haughtily dispensing with that sanction, equally it spoke from a potential station; and the agent in each particular insolence of the moment, was viewed reverentially, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... dealing with the situation with a desperate courage. "I don't know if you're mad, or only—drunk," she said, with icy sharpness. "But you're on my husband's land, and I suppose you work for him. What's your name? I need to know it so I can tell him of your insolence. Jeffrey Masters is not the man to allow his wife to be insulted with impunity by one of his cattlemen. It will be my business to see to it that he is told—everything. You were riding that way." She pointed the way she had come. "I s'pose toward ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... road, what is he looking over the hedge for. He slinks obediently away; he is only a poor labourer with his living to get, and he cannot afford to offend the man who stands between him and the lord and the lord's tenant. And he is inarticulate; but the insolence and injustice rankle in his heart, for he is not altogether a helot in soul; and the result is that the sedition-mongers, the Socialists, the furious denouncers of all landlords, who are now quartering the country, and ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... took most bitterly to heart; and therefore in Tiberius's Reign, not long after Caesar's Conquest, Tacitus tells us, That the Cities of Gaul rebell'd, because of the Continuance of Taxes, the Extortions of Usurers, and Insolence of the Soldiery. And afterwards in Nero's Reign, Suetonius writes, "That the Gauls being weary of his Tyranny, revolted. The World" (says he) "having for near 13 Years, endured such a Sort of Prince, at last shook him off: The Gauls beginning ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... Thou, I am certain, wilt not ask what I did with it. I immediately tendered those same Christians I told thee of their money. The rascals were disappointed, and would have been surly; but a single look silenced their insolence. One of them was dispatched, according to form, to see that there were no detainers; and, being paid, they ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... the insolence to rebel against its illustrious mistress, you remember that all the rational world was highly incensed. The Baroness Surowkoff declared herself frequently, and with vehemence she appealed to me. My veracity and my principles were called ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... fall into line, equipped, readorned, beautified, only the small craft of this grand flotilla which shall float out for the truth—a flotilla mightier than the armada of Xerxes moving in the pomp and pride of Persian insolence; mightier than the Carthaginian navy rushing with forty thousand oarsmen upon the Roman galleys, the life of nations dashed out against ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... notwithstanding the violent assaults made by Genet's partisans upon the integrity of Messrs. Jay and King; and on the very day when, as we have observed, he was received in New York in the midst of pealing bells and roaring cannon, a public meeting was held, in which his insolence was rebuked, and the policy of Washington's proclamation of neutrality strongly commended. Similar meetings were held throughout the Union, and there soon appeared a demonstration of public sentiment, the existence of which was not suspected by the partisans of Genet. His more violent friends ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... France, Or waiting so to do. Such, then, being seen, These tentatives must be regarded now As finally forgone; and crimson war Be faced to its fell worst, unflinchingly." —The devil take their lecture! What am I, That England should return such insolence? ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... mere crude insolence to the titled philanthropic white-beard. But it was by no means the worst of Denry's behaviour. The group—every member of the group—distinctly perceived a movement of Denry's left hand towards Sir Jee. It was the very slightest movement, a wavering, a nothing. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... on every side, so long as our way to the sea is blocked. Our mid-Asiatic possessions are suffocated from want of sea air. England knows this but too well, and therefore she devotes all her energies towards cutting us off from the sea. With an insolence, for which there is no justification, she declares the Persian Gulf to be her own domain, and would like to claim the whole of the Indian Ocean, as she already claims India itself, as her own exclusive property. This aggression must at last be met with a firm ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... sleep. Their want of sincerity is proved by the circumstance of the piracies of their respective subjects not ceasing, the chiefs sometimes feigning they were carried on without their license or knowledge; and, at others, excusing themselves on the plea of their inability to restrain the insolence of the Tirones and other independent tribes. Nevertheless, it is notorious that the above-mentioned sultans indirectly encouraged the practice of privateering, by affording every aid in their power to those who fitted out vessels, and purchasing ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... cried Bee. "The insolence of that woman! And you actually think it is funny! You think everything ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... tell Philip Schuyler to his face that he is a coward," I retorted, in rising heat at the unprovoked insolence in his tone. "There is no braver man ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... "None of your insolence to me," bawled out the old woman, at the top of her voice; "if you do, I will give you what you deserve so ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... has not as yet the insolence to restrict this precious prohibition to 'Yankees,' it is sequentially proposed that with the exception of those foreigners now in the South, no person, not a (white) native, shall ever, after this war, be allowed the rights of citizenship in the C. S. A. There has not been, that we are aware, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... alcohol?... Science and technical knowledge are passing through a great period now, but for our sort it is a flabby, stale, dull time.... The causes of this are not to be found in our stupidity, our lack of talent, or our insolence, but in a disease which for the artist is worse than syphilis or sexual exhaustion. We lack "something," that is true, and that means that, lift the robe of our muse, and you will find within an empty void. Let me remind you that the writers who ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... has thus been lost by their lack of interest in its success. Besides all these difficulties, those responsible for the administration of the Government in its executive branches have been and still are often annoyed and irritated by the disloyalty to the service and the insolence of employees who remain in place as the beneficiaries and the relics and reminders of the vicious system of appointment which civil-service ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... a vastly more numerous and powerful people, and one which by a series of unprovoked and even unrepelled attacks on us, is obliging us to look towards war as the only means left of curbing their insolence. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... foemen's. But for me, Who have lived among them, come and gone with them, Trodden with them the daily paths of life, Mixed in their pleasures, shared their hopes and fears For two long happy years, to turn and doom Their city to ruin, and their wives and children To the insolence of rapine? Nay, I dare not. I will sail at once, and get me gone for ever. I will not tell my love that I am bound By her father's jealous fancies to return To Bosphorus no more. To break my oath! That were to break it only in the word, But keep it in the spirit. Surely Heaven For ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... assumed gaiety and real insolence, had not, however, the insolence to seem as if she observed him; she had only the confidence to observe him by stealth. And Mrs. Horton and Miss Woodley, having opportunely begun a discourse upon some trivial occurrences, gave him time to recover himself by degrees—yet, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... so hacked by the blunt knives of ignorant and vulgar criticism that, by my faith! ... were it not for contempt, one would be disposed to nail the hands of such trumpery scribblers to a post, and scourge their bare backs with thorny rods to cure them of their insolence! Nay, even my fool Zabastes hath found place in these narrow columns, to write his carping diatribes against me,— me, the King's Laureate! ... As I live, his cumbersome diction hath caused me infinite mirth, and I have laughed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... watched some of them entraining one day; with them was a surly German officer who looked at his fellow-prisoners with contempt, the crowd of inhabitants with dislike, and (so it seemed to me) his guards with hatred. No one spoke to him, and he stood apart in melancholy insolence. Perhaps he was the German officer of whom the story is told that, being conducted to the Base in a third-class carriage in the company of some of his own men, and under the escort of some British soldiers, he declaimed ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... his insolence, and smiled her satisfaction. She came forward to where the first boat was getting ready to shove off. The men in her were sullen and ugly, for they had not had their breakfast, and the row would be a long ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... arrival, namely, that there had been some quarrel between Bertha and this maid, apparently during a visit to a distant family, in which she had accompanied her mistress. I had overheard Archer speaking in a tone of bitter insolence, which I should have thought an adequate reason for immediate dismissal. No dismissal followed; on the contrary, Bertha seemed to be silently putting up with personal inconveniences from the exhibitions of this woman's ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot

... nothing was published by the editors but "leaders," "articles," "paragraphs," "communications," "reports," "speeches," "lectures," "sermons," "mass meetings," "resolutions," "protests," and "letters of correspondents," regarding this "Popish plot," "this Romanist aggression," "this priestly insolence," and a thousand other names, threats, and unflattering epithets against persons and institutions, whose only connection with the case of Miss O'Clery was, that they belonged to the Catholic church, or dared ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity. The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... more, lest I should seem to be pulling to pieces the acts of Dolabella; which must inevitably sometime or other be brought before our college. But take notice of the arrogance and insolence of the fellow. As long as you please, Dolabella is a consul irregularly elected; again, while you please, he is a consul elected with all proper regard to the auspices. If it means nothing when an augur gives this ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... of man; and which, though it may be less active in the Indian than in the Englishman, is still congenial with, and makes a part of his being. That feeling which tells him that man was never made to be the property of man; but that, when in the pride and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannize over another, it is a power usurped, and resistance is a duty. That principle which tells him that resistance to power usurped is not merely a duty which he owes to himself ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... any scruple of allowing, that any piece of in-breeding, or any expression of pride and haughtiness, is displeasing to us, merely because it shocks our own pride, and leads us by sympathy into a comparison, which causes the disagreeable passion of humility. Now as an insolence of this kind is blamed even in a person who has always been civil to ourselves in particular; nay, in one, whose name is only known to us in history; it follows, that our disapprobation proceeds from a sympathy with others, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... to do her justice in that respect," Royal Blondin said. Richard flushed with anger, but felt helpless under the other man's quiet insolence. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... secretly despises the man to whose merry insolence he submits. But the young Repentigny felt for Vergor such contempt as ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... pursuers were no stealthy enemies, but merely creatures spurred by an irresistible curiosity. One was stout and red faced and inclined to breathe hard after the fatigues of the chase. The other was slim and smooth, with ripe cheeks and bright eyes, lodgings for the insolence of youth. In a word, the hunters were Mistress Satchell and pretty Tiffany, who had found their Puritan prisoner and visitor a ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... perpendicular surface! Yes; but how does it look to a dog, I wonder, that men can walk better on their hind legs than on all fours? Everything is a miracle from somebody's point of view. The sparrows were inclined to make game of my obliging little performer; but he would have none of their insolence, and repelled every approach in dashing style. In exactly three weeks from this time, and on the same hillside, I came upon another nuthatch similarly employed; but before this one had turned up a leaf to his mind, the ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... the fracas was the appearance of sundry articles, copied from the New York Times, referring to the "Lola Montez-like insolence, bare-faced hypocrisy, and effrontery of Queen Christina of Spain." The entire scene was ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... thinks his foggy island superior to any other part of the world: and though his door is never free from some dun or other coming for a tax, and if he steps out of it he is sure to be knocked down or to have his pocket picked, yet he has the insolence to think every foreigner a miserable slave, and his country the seat of everything wretched. They may talk of liberty as they please, but Spain or Turkey for my money: barring the bowstring and the inquisition, they are the most comfortable countries under heaven, and you ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... Girty's insolence, made a narrow escape. Finding, in the retreat, one of the officers wounded, he gave him his horse, and was soon after taken by three Indians. They were now over him, ready to despatch him, when two retreating white men rushed by. Two of the ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... reminding them of the agreement made at Khartoum to follow me faithfully, and of the compact that had been entered into, that they were neither to indulge in slave-hunting nor in cattle-stealing. The only effect of my address was a great outbreak of insolence on the part of the ringleader of the previous evening. This fellow, named Eesur, was an Arab, and his impertinence was so violent that I immediately ordered him twenty-five lashes, as an ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... its inception in the Cabinet throughout all the antecedent steps of consultation and preparation. Pitt's impetuosity doubtless acted as a spur to laggards, but it was accompanied by a tendency to overbearing insolence that not infrequently browbeats cautious wisdom. When applied to a man like Hawke, strong in natural temper and in conscious mastery of his profession, the tone characteristic of Pitt provokes an equally resolute self-assertion, as far removed from subjection as it is from ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... The woman contributed no suggestions to his brilliant plans. She clung to him, but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of small domestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food; the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; the insolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against the men before their officers. And the boy—he wanted to be a poilu. He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lasted long enough for his class to be called out. As darkness fell they ceased talking. ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... of her mother's insolence was in the speech, but the whole spirit of the dead actress seemed to possess Brigit for that moment. Her being rippled, as it were, with the new disturbance, just as a pond will tremble to its edges ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... subsequent excesses had not alarmed all prudent friends of liberty, the people of this country could not have been restrained from engaging in the struggle between France and England; but the reign of terror, backed by the insolence of Citizen Genet the minister of the French republic, and afterward by the exactions of the Directory, checked the headlong enthusiasm that otherwise would have embroiled us in the terrible wars of that period. In his almost more than human wisdom, Washington had selected a course ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... commons next deliberated, and presented their petitions. They attributed the insurrection to the grievances suffered by the people from: 1. The purveyors, who were said to have exceeded all their predecessors in insolence and extortion; 2. From the rapacity of the royal officers in the chancery and exchequer, and the courts of king's bench and common pleas; 3. From the banditti, called maintainers, who, in different counties, supported themselves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... times—thy idleness, thy kissing the Sitt Hilda, thy choice of low companions in the town? And then thy friends—Elias, what a wretch! Once, years ago, when conducting a party of travellers, he pushed his horse among the ladies, who were on their donkeys. Unheard-of insolence! He shouted—actually shouted at English ladies—to make way; of course, they paid no heed to such impertinence, and then he rode among them. Ma sh' Allah! And Mitri too! To hear them talk of Mitri, any one would suppose the poor, good priest some dreadful ghoul. . . . All that was ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... we will be revenged, or I shall die in the attempt. And you, rascals, dare you remain here after your insolence? ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... worth, and the roughest among them would mind what the Macruadh said. They knew that he feared nothing; that he was strong as the red stag after which the clan was named; that, with genuine respect for every man, he would at the least insolence knock the fellow down; that he was the best shot, the best sailor, the best ploughman in the clan: I would have said THE BEST SWORDSMAN, but that, except Ian, there was not another ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... up; but the Governor, apprehending that the Frenchmen would not obey, wished to give an order to the Captains to seize upon them and put them on board. He had even the insolence of putting me first on the lists, as if I was suspected or guilty of something, for which Captain Bond having perceived, said to him that he should not make a charge of that kind, as I must be excepted from it, because he remembered ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... hath found; nought meaner than a man's; No wolfish lust of ravenous insolence To soil and spoil her of her ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... furnished an important tribute to Lord Cochrane's worth, and was all the more valuable in that the Russian officer, glad to do all in his power to render homage to a man whom the Greek Government was now treating with childish insolence, made it his own by publishing it in the naval archives of Russia. "Lord Cochrane," wrote Dr. Gosse, "having arrived in Greece in March 1827, was, in the National Assembly at Troezene, elected First Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces of Greece, with independent and unlimited powers. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... a company of foot or a troop of horse; if he was no longer to have thousands of acres left waste for the chase; if he was compelled to sue for a vote where he had only yesterday reigned as manorial lord; if, in short, he was at a stroke to lose all those delights of insolence and vanity which had made, not the decoration, but the very substance, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... the power of kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government where the Prince is all-powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from committing evil; where the nobles are great without insolence, though there are no vassals; and where the people share in ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... up close to the threshold of the hut, now drew back a step or two. At sight of the woman her courage had revived, her feeling of extreme loneliness had vanished, and a good deal of the insolence which often marked her bearing had in ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... talk of other men; in fact, he will not speak either of himself or of any other; he neither cares to be praised himself nor to have others blamed; nor again does he praise freely, and for this reason he is not apt to speak ill even of his enemies except to show contempt and insolence. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... great company of lords and ladies and fashionable persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every public place, filled George's truly British soul with intense delight. They flung off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally characterises the great at home, and appearing in numberless public places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they met there. One night at a party given by the general of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... kind of vested interest in his place because, however careless, slovenly, or troublesome he might be, he could be displaced only by an elaborate and doubtful legal process. Moreover, if the head of a bureau or a collector, or a postmaster were obliged to prove negligence, or insolence, or incompetency against a clerk as he would prove theft, there would be no removals from the public service except for crimes of which the penal law takes cognizance. Consequently, removal would be always and justly regarded ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... wants. Her husband, who was brought into the workhouse, begged to have his wife released from this imprisonment, whereupon he received twenty-four hours imprisonment, with bread and water, as the penalty of his insolence. In the workhouse at Slough, near Windsor, a man lay dying in September, 1844. His wife journeyed to him, arriving at midnight; and hastening to the workhouse, was refused admission. She was not permitted to see her husband until the next morning, and then only in the presence of a female warder, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... La Grande Ville, ou les Provinciaux a Paris, which occasioned a violent uproar. The characters of this pseudo-comedy are swindlers or fools; and the spectators insisted that the portraits were either too exact a copy of the originals, or not at all like them. By means of much insolence, by means of the guard which was incautiously introduced into the pit, and which put to flight the majority of the audience, and, lastly, by means of several alterations, PICARD contrived to get his piece endured. But this triumph may probably be the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... Jove, hast thou come hither? Is it that thou mayest witness the insolence of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus? But I tell thee, what I think will be accomplished, that he will probably soon lose his ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... The ineffable insolence of this waif took me quite by surprise. He spoke with extreme volubility, and assumed the commanding air of a man of six-feet-four, though only a boy of four-feet-six. I observed, however, that he kept at a sufficient distance to make sure of escaping in ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne

... eclipse; there reigns a bright, a genial, a perpetual summer. His perceptions are as intuitive and as strong as those of Judge Marshall. He has as much intrepidity of intellect as Mr. Pinkney, and great boldness; but no insolence, no exultation of manner. He wants only ambition to make him rival, nay, perhaps even to surpass the accomplished champion of the federal bar. His fault is subtlety, and a provoking minuteness of detail in his argument. He sometimes shows legal and rhetorical ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... Julius, please."—Ormiston would have liked to maintain that same insolence of demeanour, but it gave before an apprehension of serious issues. He looked hard at the doctor, cudgeling his brains as to what the latter's enigmatic speech might mean—divined, put the idea away as inadmissible, returned to it, then said angrily:—"There's ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... "Talk of the insolence and ingratitude of children!" he gasped. "Kid, I'm astonished at you! I'll teach both of you a lesson. What do you want to ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams



Words linked to "Insolence" :   gall, chutzpa, hutzpah, crust, cheekiness, chutzpah, impudence, insolent



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