"Pig-headed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... England was herself again. There was only one discordant note in her triumph. Mr. P. A. Vaile pointed out in all the papers that Peter Riley, in the usual pig-headed English way, had been employing entirely the wrong grip. Mr. Vaile's book, How to Push the Chisel, illustrated with 50 full plates of Mr. Vaile in knickerbockers pushing the Chisel, ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... exultation in his gestures, motions for me to turn about and ride back. Had the others seconded this brilliant idea there was nothing to prevent me from being misled by the statement; but his conduct is at once condemned; for though pig-headed, they are honest of heart, and have no idea of resorting to trickery to gain their object. It now occurs to me that perhaps if I turn round and ride down hill a short distance they will see that ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... I'd do better to designate the chaps who are managing the cribs." The two men were in a window embrasure. Despeaux pointed to one side of the niche. "Over there, behold Morrison and his 'storage and power' crowd, made up of pig-headed engineers and scientific experts who are thinking only of how much power can be developed for the people as proprietors; over here, the public utilities commission made up of safe men, judiciously ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... brother!" with a nod towards her chauffeur's back. "He's a great trial to Jack, I believe. My husband has offered a hundred times to have him put into a home, but the other brother—Green, the schoolmaster—is absolutely pig-headed on the subject, and won't hear ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... regularly, more widely, more cleanly and carefully, and therefore much more healthily. It might be far more healthy than it is, but there are some people in it still—even now, at this time, nearly two hundred years later—so selfish, so pig-headed, and so ignorant, that I doubt if even another Great Fire would warm them ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... wrong for me to have such thoughts. It had been proved beyond a doubt that Mr. Driscoll was my father. I could not look at the matter from the same point of view as Mattia. He might doubt ... but I must not. When he tried to make me believe as he did, I told him to be silent. But he was pig-headed and I was not always able to get the better of ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... replied, in an offhand, careless way, that he was quite man enough to do such a job as that without anybody's help; and, as he spoke, down came the boat with a crash, and the damage was done. The whole thing seemed such a piece of pig-headed stupidity that I was thoroughly exasperated with the fellow, and gave him a good sound rating; much, apparently, to the amusement of the other men. Joe said nothing by way of excuse—indeed, any attempt to excuse himself would have been so wholly out of place ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... ladyship, "is to blame but me. It was my doing, my own pig-headed folly. The boy told me that the horse was a brute, and I—I said that he—if he hadn't the pluck to try and break him in—I would find someone who would. I am his murderess!" her ladyship cried tragically. "Yes, Marjorie, look at me—look at ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... fight against destiny, not yield an inch, stand out. Adj. obstinate, tenacious, stubborn, obdurate, casehardened; inflexible &c (hard) 323; balky; immovable, unshakable, not to be moved; inert &c 172; unchangeable &c 150; inexorable &c (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty^, restive, restiff^; pervicacious^, wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete [Fr.]; contumacious; crossgrained^. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that it was the third day after the miner's departure, that I was sitting in my office, making out a few records that were to be sent to Melbourne, when, to my surprise, one of the pig-headed follows presented himself before me. I should hardly have known him, he was so changed. His feet were bare and bleeding, his clothes were torn into shreds, and his whole appearance of the most abject ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... always was too pig-headed. You see, he took four of his boat's crew to Tulagi to be flogged—officially, you know—then started back with them in the whaleboat. It was pretty squally, and the boat capsized just outside. Swartz was the only one drowned. Of course, it was ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... is a very different thing. The difference may be illustrated by an instance in our own history. Several years ago I wrote a popular history of the House of Lords, in which I showed, at least to my own satisfaction, that for fifty years our "pig-headed oligarchs"—to borrow a phrase much in favour with the War Party—had inflicted infinite mischief upon the United Kingdom by the way in which they had abused their power to thwart the will of the elected ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... have a shot, sir, at that fellow on the rock?" said my shadow, Monsoor, who was always at my elbow. I declined the invitation, to the great disappointment of my men; at the same time I explained to these pig-headed Baris that they must accept the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... mission — that these wretches are not here for nothing. The task will seem hard at first; but only those who have tried can know how much may be done by assiduous and kindly effort towards the chastening — ay! the final redemption even! — of the most hopeless and pig-headed of uncles. ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... the same unembarrassed freedom as "The old chap out of the West Countrie" is made to do in the song. As to any of the more humble and conceding qualities usually attributed to the peaceful Quaker, Johnny had not an atom of those about him. Never was there a more pig-headed, arbitrary, positive, pugnacious fellow. He would argue anybody out of their opinions by the hour; he would "threep them down," as he called it, that is, point blank and with a loud voice insist on his own possession of the right, and of the sound common-sense of the matter; and if he could not ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... just pig-headed fool enough to argue the case to myself precisely as you are doing. Well, Jack, I've expected this hour. It's a pity there isn't more faith and trust in friendship in the world. We're all deadly afraid of trying our friends too far, so after just about so long we strike ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... largest hotels. This is especially to be desired at breakfast. Without going to the American extreme of fifty or a hundred dishes to choose from, some intermediate point short of the Scylla of sole and the Charybdis of ham and eggs might surely be found. There is probably more pig-headed conservatism than justified fear of expense in the reluctance to follow this most excellent "American lead." The British tourist in the United States takes so kindly to the preliminary fruit and cereal dishes of America ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... surrendered," answered the major. "Their loss is very heavy and ours is likewise considerable—due entirely to their pig-headed leader, who kept on fighting when he should have saved his men and surrendered," he added, with perhaps more bitterness than was necessary. He was thinking ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... got time to listen to you, Fritzy," replied Grimm, still busy with his bulbs. "It'll be a relief after that pig-headed James. Lord, how I do hate an obstinate man! You said a while ago you wanted to see me on a private matter. What was it? If it's that full-page coloured cut of the new tulip, I may as ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr. Bennett's Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had been waiting for the signal. The noise of the engine died away. The wheels ceased to revolve. The automobile did everything except lie down. It was a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it would be taken back to ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... people are so cruel! People will be saying that it was I who kept poor Cousin George in London this past two weeks, and that but for me he would have been in France long ago. And then the Queen, Ned!—why, that pig-headed old woman will be blaming it on me, that there is nobody to prevent that detestable French King from turning Catholic and dragging England into new wars, and I shall not be able to go to any of the court dances! nor to the masque!" ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... standing over the group and nervously twirling his fierce moustache, shuddered and groaned. It was bad enough that his young, but pig-headed Hohenzollern should play at all with children who were neither high, nor well-born; but that he should only be admitted to play with them on terms passed the limit of human decency. He had read often in the sterner, but agrarian, ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... pig-headed fellow? Come, Hyde, be persuaded." The colonel got up from his seat and walked round to where the sergeant stood, still erect and motionless. "Come, Rupert, old comrade, old friend," and he put his hand affectionately ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... rubbish? She is quite content so long as she can detect in herself no tendency to male vices, forgetful that there are also feminine vices. Woman is the spoilt child of the age. No one tells her of her faults. The World with its thousand voices flatters her. Sulks, bad temper, and pig-headed obstinacy are translated as 'pretty Fanny's wilful ways.' Cowardice, contemptible in man or woman, she is encouraged to cultivate as a charm. Incompetence to pack her own bag or find her own way across a square and round a corner is deemed an attraction. ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... leaders look on revolution 90 Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,— Jest social el'ments in solution? This weighin' things doos wal enough When war cools down, an' comes to writin'; But while it's makin', the true stuff Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... as he took a pinch of snuff, and said: "Age will calm you down, abbe, and experience also. You will drive away from the church the remaining faithful ones, and that is all the good it will do. In this district they are religious, but pig-headed; be careful. Faith, when I see a girl come to confess who looks rather stout, I say to myself: 'She is bringing me a new parishioner,' and I try to get her married. You cannot prevent them from ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... must be of a very insatiable and ravenous disposition, and this is but too often realized by the silly wearers of the porcine chignons, into whose brains, (when they happen to have any,) the horrible little parasites worm their way in myriads, rendering their hapless victims pig-headed to an extent that defies description either with pen ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... it through, sir! No one but yourself could have done it! And it is a wonder that even you could do so with such a set of pig-headed rascals as our assemblymen. And now, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... but I will come in again this evening. Don't eat any more of their messes, if they bring them in. You and I will have a snug little dinner together. I might get you put into a more dacent chamber, but the general is one of the old pig-headed sort. We don't pull together, so I would rather not ask any favours ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... notion about being made a laughingstock, I gather," said his wife. "Heaven knows I've talked to her till I'm utterly worn out. She says she won't be bullied into even meeting the Prince, much less marrying him. I've never known her to be so pig-headed. Usually I can make her see things in a sensible way. She would have married the duke, I'm sure, if—if you hadn't put a stop to it on account of his so-called ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... say anything. I was thinking. Listen, Genevieve, what's the use of our going on like this? I see now I was pig-headed to send that note. It was cruel to you. ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... opened and the sergeant appeared, saluting, and saying, "'Tis the hour of sunset, Master De Veaux; the guard is about to be relieved, and I must request you to retire and leave the prisoner for the night. Surely you must be tired of talking with such a pig-headed young savage." ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... in the presence of a board of six, of whom two ancient members were too blind to see it, two other ancient members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient member was too lame to get near it, and the final ancient member was too pig-headed to look at it. How there were more years; more impertinences, ignorances, and insults. How my lords then made a Minute, number five thousand one hundred and three, whereby they resigned the business ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... few incoherent words at the Rector's doorway opposite. 'Oh, yes,' chirped out the voice in a tone of cheerful resignation, 'it's very sad indeed, very sad and shocking, and I'm naturally very sorry for it, of course. I always knew how it would be: I warned them of it; but they're a pig-headed, heedless, unmannerly family, and they wouldn't be guided by me. I said to him, "Now, Oswald, this is all very wrong and foolish of you. You go and put your son to Oxford, when he ought to be stopping at home, minding the shop and ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... and pig-headed Maccabees! I had eaten bacon with my pork liever than change places at the fire ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... but at any rate it moved. She was an engine, and the fact that she did not know that she was an engine contributed largely to the effect. One reason that she was formidable was that she did not even imagine that she was formidable. She remained a weak, innocent, and pig-headed creature, who alone would defy the universe if she thought ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... she does," said Thomas, "and if you weren't the most selfish, pig-headed, blind bat that ever flew, you'd have seen that she got it, long before this. Where ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... I, "Have you ever seen a little green apple." Then I tried to show him what wonderful things are always happening in this world of ours, if only we have eyes to see them. I do not think I convinced him; for he was very pig-headed and had a great opinion of himself; and such people big or little are ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... all the sympathy go to the workmen who are acting like the pig-headed idiots they are, and none for the head of the factory, who has the sharp-edged, red-hot brunt of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Rhymes.] Self-assertion is especially characteristic of their self-appointed leader, Ezra Pound, in whose case it is undoubtedly an inheritance from Walt Whitman, whom he has lately acknowledged as his "pig-headed father." [Footnote: Lustra.] A typical assertion is that in ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... final thing. Statesmanship is bigger than programmes painted on the clouds. There's a vast deal to be done yet in this country for the enfranchisement of labour in industry as it is franchised in government. There are pig-headed Tories of industry who will have to illustrate tombstones before some of the old spirit of repression of labour will die out in the nation. But the die-hards are fewer every year. Some wages had to come down to get everything else down. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Wallenloup! A pig-headed old fool, who would never be brought to see an inch either side of his oath of allegiance, but would rush blindly on before the Duke to his death, and to the destruction of Maasau—to anywhere! Colendorp, Ulm being away, you are the senior officer, failing Wallenloup. It is not outside the ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... slice of it—the more shame to him! From all of which Isabel gathered that Lord Warburton was a nobleman of the newest pattern, a reformer, a radical, a contemner of ancient ways. His other brother, who was in the army in India, was rather wild and pig-headed and had not been of much use as yet but to make debts for Warburton to pay—one of the most precious privileges of an elder brother. "I don't think I shall pay any more," said her friend; "he lives a monstrous deal better than I do, enjoys unheard-of luxuries and ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... each had sailed in a certain Australian coasting steamer more than twenty years before—he as chief officer and I as passenger; and her shipwreck one Christmas Eye (long after), which was attended by an appalling loss of life, led us to talk of "pig-headed" skippers generally. His experiences were large, and some of his stories were terrible even to hear, others were grotesquely humorous, and the memory of that particularly pleasant passage across a sea as smooth as a mill pond, has impelled me to retell some of the incidents I related to him of ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... subject when a customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, attended to his business. He led the customer into the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a long time discussing something with him. The customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began pouring some oats into a ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... well, one comes to doubt that they ever existed—places of repose for tired ships to dream in, places of meditation rather than work, where wicked ships—the cranky, the lazy, the wet, the bad sea boats, the wild steerers, the capricious, the pig-headed, the generally ungovernable—would have full leisure to take count and repent of their sins, sorrowful and naked, with their rent garments of sailcloth stripped off them, and with the dust and ashes of the London atmosphere upon their mastheads. For that the worst of ships would ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... matter was pig-headed and brutal, there is no doubt; but the Squire's nature was far from exclusive, and the idea of saving in any thing, it is certain, never entered into his head. The time, indeed, was slowly but surely coming when the ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... murder! Madness and misconception! Any one of the subjects—not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... all air leanin' toward promises of little work an' lots of pay," answered Jerry, with a laugh. "Morgan's on the fence about joinin'. But Andrew agreed. He's Dutch an' pig-headed. Jansen's only too glad to make trouble fer his boss. They're goin' to lay off the rest of to-day an' talk with Glidden. They all agreed to meet down by the culvert. An' thet's what they was arguin' with me fer—wanted ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... odd apologetic voice, "you see the old beggar had got into a pig-headed sort of pet last year. He said he would cut me if I left the service, and so he felt bound to be as good as his word; but he seems to have felt lost without us, and to have been looking out for a chance of meeting. He ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inoperative for several reasons—one, because it could not be enforced, and another, because Great Britain has been compelled to rely upon the Colonies to aid in driving the French from Canada. That has been accomplished, and now King George, who is not remarkably intelligent, but pig-headed, and his short-sighted ministers are determined to carry out measures, not only to obtain revenue from the Colonies, but to repress manufactures here for the benefit of the manufactures of England. Thanks to our spinning-school, a stimulus has been given to our ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... ladies, the indefatigable Major was hard at work in the stables. This came a little hard on him. There was the cub-hunting to be looked after, which made his presence at Runnymede necessary, and then that "pig-headed fellow, Silverbridge" would not have the horses trained anywhere but at Newmarket. How was he to be in two places at once? Yet he was in two places almost at once: cub-hunting in the morning at Egham and Bagshot, and sitting on the same evening at the stable-door at Newmarket, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... wish I had bitten off my tongue rather than reported the matter. I got hold of an aide-de-camp, and I pointed out what we had seen, and he spoke to me as if I was a boy with my heart in my mouth for fear I would be shot every minute. For a set of pig-headed fools——" ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... of his meetings, you'll only be chucked into the street. You're nobody now, through your own fault, and you've made people sorry for your father instead of sorry for you, because you're such a pig-headed fool about ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... and I play my game my own way. I'm a 'driver,' I know it, and a 'bully,' too. Oh, I know what they call me—'a brute beast, with a twist in my temper that would rile up a new-born lamb,' and I'm 'crusty' and 'pig-headed' and 'obstinate.' They say all that, but they've got to say, too, that I'm cleverer than any man-jack in the running. There's nobody can get ahead of me." His eyes snapped. "Let 'em grind their teeth. They can't 'down' me. When I shut my fist there's not one of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... will of his own; and he was obstinate, mulish, pig-headed. If he had been surprised into declaring that black was white, then black would continue to be white, in spite of positive demonstration to the contrary. He was dogmatic to the last degree; and this is a fault to which the schoolmaster is peculiarly liable. ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... you I won't do it till you go back! Darn your skin, I wouldn't be as pig-headed as you are for a hundred ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... I've lived here three mortal years, waitin' for you to git up out of your mother's arms and come out to keep me company, and I know what there is to know. Some things out here is queer—so queer folks wouldn't believe 'em unless they saw. An' some's so pig-headed they don't believe their own eyes. As for th' wind, if you lay down flat and squint toward th' west, you can see it blowin' along near th' ground, like a big ribbon; an' sometimes it's th' color of air, an' sometimes it's silver an' gold, an' sometimes, when a storm ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... to weep over her Julie's hardness, she applied her mind at once to the rectification of the error she had made. Yes, she had been wrong about the lawyer—certainly wrong. But then these English people were so pig-headed! A slight suspicion of a hint, such as that she had made, would have been taken by a Frenchman, by a Russian, by a Pole, as meaning no more than it meant. "But these English are bulls the men and the women ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... quarter-deck methods on shore and especially in town-meeting, and very often in trouble in consequence. He was a member of the Board of Selectmen and was in the habit of characterizing those whose opinions differed from his as "narrow-minded." They retorted by accusing him of being "pig-headed." There was some truth on both sides. His detest of foreigners had not abated ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... assured me I could never get my dog across, the savage Mongol brutes would tear him in pieces; but I knew my dog and he did not, so I put that aside. The last shot was the hardest to meet: "It will not be worth while." Almost I gave in, but I had reached the pig-headed stage, and I could ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... July, 1792, the duke of Brunswick (1735-1806), the pig-headed commander-in-chief of the allied armies, issued a proclamation to the French people. He declared it his purpose "to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... "there's no arguing against you two beggars. You're so pig-headed. Never mind all that. These thingamy Dwats have come down ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... pig-headed sot! (aloud) Young man, you cannot know the risk you run. Th' alternative's in earnest—not in fun. Dame Turandot will spin you a tough riddle, That's not to be "got thro' like any fiddle." Not such as this, which any child might guess— ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... these glad words: Rojas is in the hospital. I was interested to inquire. He had a smashed finger, a dislocated collar bone, three broken ribs, and a fearful gash on his face. He'll be in the hospital for a month. Dick, when I meet that pig-headed dad of yours I'm going to give him the surprise of ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... things I have done are nothing in comparison with the things that I have yet to do, if your insane government of pig-headed fools persists in its defiance. It is my plan to send you back to tell them that their President lies bound in gold chains as my footstool. That the hurricane which spread the gas through southern America was a mere ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... fact, showing not the smallest animosity. He was always very ready to be cordial towards Sabre; but his cordiality took a form in which Sabre had never seen eye to eye with him. The attitude he extended to Sabre was that he and Sabre were two young fellows under a rather pig-headed old employer and that they could have many jokes and grievances and go-ahead schemes in companionship together. Sabre did not accept this view. He gave Twyning, from the first, the impression of considering himself as working alongside Mr. Fortune ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I won't boil. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... own sake," said Ralph. As he spoke he filled his glass, and passed the bottle, and then was silent for a few moments. "Neefit did help me," he continued, "and I don't want to speak against him; but he is the most pig-headed old fool that ever existed. Nothing will stop him but Polly's marriage, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... of all characters and descriptions of me, that your honour has seen fit to put abroad, this is the most unjustest; chickens being a food I never thinks on, off soundings. Pig-headed you might in reason call me, Sir Jarvy; for I do looks arter the pigs, which is the only real stand-by in a ship; but I never dreams of a chicken, except for your happetite. When they was ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Broadway associations to the Ilyinka. A translator can only strive to be colloquial and familiar, giving up the effort to render the varying atmosphere of the different plays. And Ostrovsky's characters are as natural as his language. Pig-headed merchants; apprentices, knavish or honest as the case may be; young girls with a touch of poetry in their natures, who sober down into kindly housewives; tyrannical serf-owners and weak-willed sons of noble families: such is the material of which he builds his ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... accept it." It was as if Maria Dolores could hear the words. But Winthorpe, calm and smiling, would not be moved. John shook his head, muttered, shrugged his shoulders, threw up his hands, muttered again. "Was ever such pig-headed obstinacy! Was ever such arbitrary, voluntary blindness! I give you up, for a perverse, a triple-pated madman!" And so, John muttering and frowning, Winthorpe serenely smiling, reiterating, they passed round ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... as intellectual discipline. They say in effect:—"This sawdust we offer you contains no food, we know: but then see how it strengthens the jaws to chew it!" Besides, look at our results! The typical John Bull! pig-headed, ignorant, brutal. Are we really such immense successes ourselves that we must needs perpetuate the mould ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... takes him aback. He expected to find her defiance disappear with the cause of it. But pig-headed, as all Bennets, her opposition only drives him on]. Your ladyship is not ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... pouring forth his confessions to Kestner and Lotte, his circumstances at home were not such as to conduce to calm of mind. Frankfort remained as distasteful to him as ever. "The Frankforters," he wrote to Kestner, "are an accursed folk; they are so pig-headed that nothing can be made of them." With his father his relations had not become more cordial after his return from Wetzlar. "Lieber Gott," he wrote on receiving a letter from his father, "shall I then also become like this when I am old? Shall my soul no longer attach itself to what is good ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... character pleasant, Once lived in a hut with his wife. He was cheerful and docile, But such an old fossil You wouldn't meet twice in your life. His notions were all without reason or rhyme, Such dullness in any one else were a crime, But the folly pig-headed To which he was wedded Was so deep imbedded, it touched ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... an uncommonly dutiful daughter," Mr. Nowell exclaimed with rather a bitter laugh; "I thought that you would have repudiated me altogether perhaps; would have taken your tone from my father, who has grown pig-headed with old age, and cannot forgive me for having had ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... he said, "but the truth is you are hoodwinked by official stupidity. That man," pointing at Professor Pludder, "who knows me well, and who has had all my proofs laid before him, is either too thick-headed to understand a demonstration or too pig-headed ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... maybe, o'er sure, Neil. Deacon Van Vorst has said mair than my natural man could thole, many a time, in the sessions and oot o' them; but the dominie aye stood between us wi' his word, and we hae managed so far to keep the peace, though a mair pig-headed, provoking, pugnacious auld Dutchman never sat down on ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... station of life unto which it has pleased God to call you? Did it answer God's purpose, and serve Him, when the food was unfit for a child to eat, and unwholesome for any one?' Well! I would not give it up, I was so pig-headed about my soul; so says I, 'I wish folks would be content with locusts and wild honey, and leave other folks in peace to work out their salvation;' and I groaned out pretty loud to think of missus's soul. ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to play in, and Oswald had found out what 'in Chancery' really means, so he had no fear of being turned into a pig-headed lady, or ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... quite right, Adrien," replied Hugh. "I consider him a most dangerous man. That sort of pig-headed, bull-headed employer of labour does more to promote strife than a dozen 'walking delegates.' I am not terribly strong for the unions, but the point of vantage is always with the employers. And they have a lot to learn. Oh, you may look at me, Adrien! ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... right," replied Rolfe viciously. "He's the most pig-headed, obstinate, vain, narrow-minded man you could come across." It occurred to Rolfe that it was not exactly good form on his part to condemn his superior officer so vigorously in the presence of a rival, so he broke ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... did not enjoy that month's idling. I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. That is my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... pig-headed in his advance, now became chicken-hearted in his retreat. He was in no danger. Yet he ran like a hare. Had it not been for his steady regulars and some old hands among the rangers his return would have become a perfect rout. Pitt ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company generally; "and p'rhaps you aren't pig-headed; and p'rhaps you didn't say the cow was a red Durham; and p'rhaps you didn't say she'd got a star on her brow—stick to that, ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... adding, "Ah! les braves gens!" the very last epithet in the world I should have dreamed of applying to them. All the negotiations with the Comte de Chambord fell through, owing to his obstinacy (to which I have referred earlier) in refusing to accept the Tricolor as the national flag. Possibly pig-headed obstinacy; but in these days of undisguised opportunism, it is rare to find a man who deliberately refuses a throne on account of his convictions. I do not think that the Comte de Chambord would have been a success in present-day British politics. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... for'ard," he said when Hartog, he, and I sat together one evening in the cabin, "will make trouble if they can. They are a pig-headed lot, and a dozen apiece at the gratings would do them no harm. But while they outnumber us, as they do, three to one, we must avoid a quarrel. Besides, if we got the upper hand, and drove the scum into the sea, we'd be undermanned for the voyage, and unable to weather ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... Mr. Torpedo, puffing fiercely at his cigar, "the President never will assign Johnston to command again, sir! You call Mr. Davis 'pig-headed,' Mr. Croker—you are wrong, sir! You do injustice to the pigs, sir! ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... will finger some of your hard-earned dollars before long, Mr. Ricks. I pulled your barkentine Retriever out of the breakers this morning. In fifteen minutes she would have been on the beach and a total loss—and I have a document, signed by Captain Murphy and his mates, to prove it. I offered the pig-headed fellow a tow at ten o'clock the night before, but he declined it—trying to save a few dollars, of course—so when I had him where he had to ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... where had he ever got his chance—a real chance? Visions of the rich men among his acquaintance, sleek, half-breed financiers, idle, conceited youths of the "classes," pushed on by family interest; pig-headed manufacturers, inheritors of fortunes they could never have made; the fatteners on colonial land and railway speculation—his whole mind rose in angry revolt against the notion that he could not have done, personally, as well as any of them, had ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... overexcited by the discovery of some new and entrancing upland in the domain of art, he had bought or borrowed a volume of light fiction in order to read himself to sleep, and a detective figured occasionally in such pages. Usually, the official was a pig-headed idiot, whose blunders and narrow-mindedness served as admirable whetstones for the preternaturally sharp intelligence of an amateur investigator ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... Phyllis was like. He had met her only a couple of months before the scout mission was scheduled, and so their courtship had been brief, and the actual weeks of marriage even briefer. He had remembered Phyllis as beautiful—and she was beautiful. He had not, however, remembered her as pig-headed—and pig-headed she ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... of the way whilst I searched your rooms," she told him coolly. "If you were not such an obstinate, pig-headed, unkind, prejudiced person, it would not ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a good friend, and a moderate enemy, loving his country, but his King better; and on very good terms with him and Madame de Maintenon. His mind was limited and; like all persons of little wit and knowledge, he was obstinate and pig-headed— smiling affectedly with a gentle compassion on whoever opposed reasons to his, but utterly incapable of understanding them—consequently a dupe in friendship, in business, in everything; governed by all who could manage to win his admiration, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... didn't know anything about him, but I do), the trouble with him is that he is chock full of all kinds of principles! Just as father was. Don't you remember how he lost parish after parish because he couldn't smooth over the big men in them? Lossing is every bit as pig-headed. I am not going to have my daughter lead the kind of life my mother did. I want a son-in-law who ain't going to think himself so much better than I am, and be rowing me for my way of doing business. ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... was not satisfied even now, there was an end to the lady's patience. 'You say that everything is perishable,' said she, 'but now I shall still name something which will always be like itself; and that is that such arrogant and pig-headed peasants as you will always be found in this province—until the end ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... curus as women. You can hunt and trap 'um all your life an' think you know all about 'um, then along will come a bar that will teach you difrunt. There ain't no use in makin' rules about bar ettyket, cuz ef you do, some miserable pig-headed bar will break 'um all ter smash, jest like this 'ere one did. But I think there is a good deal surer way uv accountin' for the critter's action than what you say. It's my idee that he mistook the baby for a ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... fro most of the day with light loads. The great trouble with them has been due to the fatuous conduct of the penguins. Groups of these have been constantly leaping on to our floe. From the moment of landing on their feet their whole attitude expressed devouring curiosity and a pig-headed disregard for their own safety. They waddle forward, poking their heads to and fro in their usually absurd way, in spite of a string of howling dogs straining to get at them. 'Hulloa,' they seem to say, 'here's ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... of God!" he groaned, raising both fists to heaven, "has she got this far, and then been killed! Oh, what in Hades did I entrust her to an Indian for? The pig-headed, brave old fool! Why couldn't he ride round them, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... really, your objections, if you won't mind my saying so, are absolutely footling. All they amount to is—because Gold Mines here always have been worked by gangs of Yellow Gnomes, therefore they must be for all time. Now that's just the kind of fine old crusted pig-headed Conservativism that's kept this the stick-in-the-mud Country it is! Look at the sort of business you've been wasting our time in jawing about to-day—why, in the country We came from, a Rural District Council would have settled it all in five minutes if they thought it worth bothering about at ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... future. Here is a thousand pounds; it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for your musical tomfoolery if you insist, and then—get what living you can.' Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what does my governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine—God bless him!—he's got no sense of the respect a father owes to his offspring. Not an atom. You're simply a branch to be run on the lines of the old business, or be shut up altogether. ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... influence with McGee. He is proud of her education; and wants his children to follow after her, and not be raised as ignorant as himself. So perhaps the leaven in the lump will work. Only when he gets one of his pig-headed streaks on, nobody in the world ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... doing six months in Butte, Montana. Break it to her as mercifully as possible. He is a bad one. We make no charge. The truck driver, Becker, can find his wife at her mother's house, Leonia, New Jersey. Tell him to be less pig-headed or she'll go for good some day. Ten dollars. Mrs. M., No. 36001, can find her missing butler in service at 79 Vine Street, Hartford, Connecticut. She may notify the police whenever she wishes. His portrait is No. 170529, Rogues' Gallery. Five hundred dollars. ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... atrocities are engaging the public attention, we are tempted to contribute our quota of speculation as to the monster's identity. We thought of doing so before, but we reflected that it was perfectly useless while such a pig-headed person as Sir Charles Warren was at the head of the police. Now, however, that he is gone, and there is a chance of common-sense suggestions being fairly considered, we venture to propound our theory, in the hope that it will at least be ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... to be forced to eat one's own words. Never tell one of an opinion which he once held, if he has since had reason to alter his views. There is no sin or weakness in changing one's mind. It is a thing which all of us—if we except a few victims to pig-headed prejudice—do daily. And, as a rule, we hate to be reminded of the fact. Then why call the attention of others to the circumstances that they are guilty of the same weakness, if such it be? ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... recollected that he had laid himself open before he was sure of Sir Arthur's REAL character. He softened, and said he should have had certainly more CONSIDERATION in the case of any but a litigious, pig-headed fellow, as ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... boy of his age should be able to keep such a secret against four of us; and then it is most improbable that he should have seen anything of the occurrence and not have come at once to his father." But the girls held to their own opinion, till at last they were told by Frank that they were two pig-headed nincompoops. ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... Drake," she reminded him, "played bowls when the Armada sailed. Your Cabinet Ministers will be playing golf or tennis. Oh, what a careless country you are!—a careless, haphazard, blind, pig-headed nation to watch over the destinies of such an Empire! I'm so tired of politics, dear. I am so tired of all the big things that concern other people. They press upon one. Now it is finished. You and I are alone. You are my lover, aren't you? Remind me of it. If you will, ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean yourself by going!—and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when lies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And then afterward you find yourself let in for living ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now sent home to England a prisoner. But King William was not altogether pleased with all the colonists had done, and he was set free without any trial. He was not really a bad man, but he was dogged and pig-headed, without sympathy or imagination, and altogether the wrong man in the wrong place. Later on he came back to America as Governor of Virginia, and this time ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... and his limp, lazy hands pottered about the wall on either side of him, as if they were groping for a imaginary bottle. In plain English, the complaint of "My son Benjamin" was drunkenness, of the stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this conclusion easily enough, after a moment's observation of the man, Trottle found himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the monstrous big coat collar, and looking at it with a curiosity that ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... think you'd get at the model sooner, if some of you weren't pig-headed about your own, and too fond of abusing each other's?" ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... know nothing so pig-headed as a philosopher. In all humility and supplication, might one not know from his highness the philosopher, about what age her ladyship, his daughter, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... again the product will be doubled. The spirit of swine is not changed by civilization or good breeding; such as it was on that day when the herd "ran down a steep place and was drowned in the sea," such it is to-day. A fixed determination to have its own way dominated the creature then, and a pig-headed desire to be the greatest food-producing machine in the world is its ruling passion now. That the hog has succeeded in this is beyond question; for no other food animal can increase its own weight one hundred and fifty fold ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... Kester, thankful to have a subject started. 'They'n pleughed up t' oud pasture-field, and are settin' it for 'taters. They're not for much cattle, isn't Higginses. They'll be for corn in t' next year, a reckon, and they'll just ha' their pains for their payment. But they're allays so pig-headed, is ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... wager my life on it! Oh, it's absurd—insulting! But what are you going to do with a lot of pig-headed ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... of a company in the city of London! Allons donc. Well, sir, for years after this all Europe, even Russia, advanced in civilization, and opened their medical schools to women; so did the United States: only the pig-headed Briton stood stock-still, and gloried in his minority of one; as if one small island is likely to be right in its monomania, and all civilized ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... all the people in every walk of life means more to these farmers than a high-sounding shibboleth. That being so, it becomes difficult to accept the slur of utter selfishness—the idea that the farmers are auto-intoxicated, a pig-headed lot who cause trouble for nothing. It is very hard to believe that Everybody Else is good and kind and sincere and true, affectionate one to another with brotherly love, not slothful in business; for one knows that the best of us need the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... for, being heavily made up, she could not and would not follow the leader. After this Charles Reade acquitted me of the use of "pigments red," but he still kept up a campaign against "Chalky," as he humorously christened my powder-puff. "Don't be pig-headed, love," he wrote to me once; "it is because Chalky does not improve you that I forbid it. Trust unprejudiced and friendly ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... or against the gate-post he would bump the rider's leg in a way that would make him remember the difference of opinion between them. His was not a fiery, hot-headed spirit, with object or reason for its guide, but just a regular downright pig-headed sort of stupidity, that nobody could account for. He had a mouth like a bull, and would walk clean through a gate sometimes rather than be at the trouble of rising to leap it; at other times he would hop over ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... trying his best to prevent him from continuing his foolish mode of plunging attack; but the pig-headed chap would persist in continually rushing in on my guard, and getting knocked down as regularly, time after time, without his having a chance of landing a blow at me, his fists ever whirling about aimlessly, and being easily avoided by myself. ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the happiest of men. I desire nothing now but her happiness. (With dreamy enthusiasm.) Oh, Morell, let us both give her up. Why should she have to choose between a wretched little nervous disease like me, and a pig-headed parson like you? Let us go on a pilgrimage, you to the east and I to the west, in search of a worthy lover for her—some beautiful ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... "Say pig-headed; I shan't mind. Certainly I am! A girl has got to be, even nowadays, if she wants to play fair. Listen, Mr. Marson; I will not have the dead mouse. I do not like dead mice. If you attempt to work off your dead mouse on me this partnership ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... concession of that sort from me. The banquet fell through, and, as I saw later, the society began from that time forward to regret my appointment, realising that they had an entirely intractable and pig-headed person ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... then a messenger in the semi-military garb of a farrash, pushes his way to the front and delivers a message from these worthies, full of lies and deceit. From the top of their shaved and turbaned heads to the soles of their slip-shod feet they are filled with a pig-headed determination to accomplish their object of seeing the bicycle ridden. They send me all sorts of messages, from one of but ordinary improbability, saying that the Mustapha is outside and wants me to come out and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... shouted, "you are so damned pig-headed! You aren't building the dam for us farmers. You are building it for the glory of your own ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Martin Lorimer, "many a time, and we had words upon it. We're a thick-headed people, Ralph, except for our womenkind, and if we're slow to think evil we're slow to change. The Lord forgive me for pig-headed folly." ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... just that kind of pig-headed ignorance that has kept the two countries from understanding each other. Why shouldn't Ireland govern herself. South Africa does. Australia does. And when you're in trouble they leap to your flag. Yet there is a country a few miles from you that sends the best of her people to your professions ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... Sir Henry thought of Mr. Bertram's coffers. Ah! if he could only be let into that secret, it might be easy to come to a decision. That the old man had quarrelled with his nephew, he was well aware. That George, in his pig-headed folly, would make no overtures towards a reconciliation; of that also he was sure. Was it not probable that at any rate a great portion of that almost fabulous wealth would go to the man's granddaughter? There was doubtless risk; but then ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... toe!" groaned the sufferer. "Sir William won't hear of my moving yet. I do think he is the most completely obstinate and pig-headed man that I have ever met. I tell him that he has mistaken his profession, and that I could find him a post at Constantinople. We ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that. She will never change. Amid all the shames and shadows of that life there will always lie the ray of her perfect honesty. I don't know about your honesty, but yours will be the easier lot. You will always have your . . . other love—you pig-headed enthusiast of ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... gates had a terrible pow-wow with an officious Bavarian who called himself the Officer-of-the-Day. I played all my best German cards, including Count von Bemstorffs letter. At the end of half an hour our pig-headed officer shipped us back to Brussels. We returned to von W———, then in Brussels, who vised our pass with a note to the effect that although we were civilians, exceptional circumstances demanded our hurried return ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green |
