"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... smarting under the effects of the ridicule which his companions had cast upon him, and that, in his struggle to make a speech, and thus redeem himself from the obloquy of a failure, he had permitted his impulses to override ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... with the rapidity of lightning, but finds it impossible to retain it beyond a very brief space. Yet this new love was rather more serious than the scarce skinned-up wounds which his friend Fairford used to ridicule. The damsel had shown a sincere interest in his behalf; and the air of mystery with which that interest was veiled, gave her, to his lively imagination, the character of a benevolent and protecting spirit, as much as that of a ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie up himself from that hectoring liberty, that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of the times. He objected also, that but few of the mighty, rich, or wise, were ever of my opinion (1 Cor. 1:26; 3:18; Phil. 3:7, 8); nor any of them neither (John 7:48), before they were persuaded to be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... chivalrous nature, who looks kindly upon the extravagance which caricatures his own qualities, but also sees clearly that the highest morality is that which is in conformity with plain reason and common sense. Beneath the ridicule of the romances there is the strongest sympathy with all that ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... you betrayed us to the naked hangman with your promises and with your drink? If you brought us out here to fail us and to ridicule us, it is the last day ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... the armor of the doughty Artemus. That astute gentleman knows their worth as well as anybody else, and while he ostensibly extols them, as a showman is bound to do, he every now and then holds them up to ridicule in a vein of the deepest irony. In one case a palpable error of perspective, by which a man is made equal in size to a mountain, has been purposely committed, and the shouts of laughter that arise as soon as the ridiculous picture appears is tremendous. But there ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... could possess such superhuman nerve had never occurred to his untutored mind. He was a perfect dub to have let the situation reach such a stage of complexity, though the one thought uppermost in his mind was to save Helen from public ridicule ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... know the life into which he thus plunged joyous, as if he had been familiar with it from his childhood. King James was not without an object amid all the laughter and the pranks of his holiday. The King's cheerful ridicule of the clumsy fellows who could not draw the bow was intended, with a prick of scorn under the laughter, to rouse up his rustic lieges to emulation, not to be behind the southern pock-puddings whose deadly arrows were, in every encounter between Scots and English, the chief danger to ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... Massachusetts, was one of the most noted women of our early history. She left a record of her heart and character, and to some extent a picture of the stirring times in which she lived, in the shape of letters which are of perennial value, especially to the young. "It was fashionable to ridicule female learning" in her day; and she says of herself in one of her letters, "I was never sent to any school." She adds in explanation, "I was always sick." When girls, however, were sent to school, their education seldom went beyond writing and arithmetic. But in spite of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... coupled with his unsurpassed gift of story-telling was another distinct trait of the Cossak in him,—the ability of seeing good-humoredly the frailties of man; and his humor, undefiled by the scorn of the cynic, proved a most powerful weapon in his hands. Ridicule has ever proved a terror to corruption. But in the hands of Gogol this ridicule became a weapon all the more powerful because it took the shape of impersonal humor where the indignation of the author was kept out of sight, so that even ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... studies. With the exception of some fugitive pieces, he did not however seek distinction as an author till 1819, when a satirical poem, entitled "St James's in an uproar," appeared anonymously from his pen. This composition intended to support the extreme political opinions then in vogue, exposed to ridicule some leading persons in the district, and was attended with the temporary apprehension and menaced prosecution of the printer. To the columns of the Ayr and Wigtonshire Courier he now began to contribute a series of sketches, founded on traditions ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... looked forward to going to school with about equal measures of delight and dread; my pride and ambition longed for this first step in life, but Rupert had filled me with a wholesome awe of its stringent etiquette, its withering ridicule, and unsparing severities. However, in his anxiety to make me modest and circumspect, I think he rather over-painted the picture, and when I got through the first day without being bullied, and made such creditable friends on the second, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... so austere and devout a life in a young person of twelve years old could not fail to attract the attention and draw down the censures of the worldly. Many such began to laugh at Francesca, and to turn her piety into ridicule. They intruded their advice on Lorenzo Ponziano, and urged him to put a stop to what they termed his wife's eccentricities. But happily for Francesca, he was not one of those men who are easily influenced by the opinion of others. ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... assert our own old-fashioned notion boldly: and more; we will say, in spite of ridicule—That if such a God exists, final causes must exist also. That the whole universe must be one chain of final causes. That if there be a Supreme Reason, he must have reason, and that a good reason, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Liebknecht before he returned to Germany to serve a prison term for his lese majeste speech in the Reichstag, gave us a glimpse of the old-fashioned orthodox Socialist who had not yet begun to yield to the biting ridicule of Bernard Shaw although he flamed in ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... peculiar to himself. Spenser in the sixteenth century, and Lord Tennyson in our own day, pictured its virtues and noble aspirations. In his immortal 'Don Quixote,' Cervantes held its extravagances up to ridicule. In Ariosto's day no one believed any longer in the heroes or the ideals of chivalry, nor did the poet himself; hence there is an air of unreality about the poem. The figures that pass before us, although they have certain characteristics ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... ridicule soon turned into delight as they gazed at the wondrous display of tints, beautifully blended, so that no two colours jarred. But it was not only in its hues that there was so much fascination to the eye, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... by a grand jury to respond for words spoken in debate, and recommended the gentlemen who had indulged in such preposterous threats "to study a little the first principles of civil liberty," excoriating them until they actually arose and tried to explain away their own language. He cast infinite ridicule upon the unhappy expression of Dromgoole, "giving color to an idea." Referring to the difficulty which he encountered by reason of the variety and disorder of the resolutions and charges against him with which "gentlemen from the South ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... those who assail the belief increases, and their utterances become more frank and dogmatic. A multitude of instances, clear to every careful observer, prove this. Especially at the present moment do examples of painful doubt, profound misgiving, bold and exultant denial, mocking flippancy and ridicule, abound on all sides, in private conversation, in public discussion, and in every form of literary activity. The hearty thoroughness and fervor with which the faith of the Church was once held have gone from whole classes. Subtle ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... serious injury or ruin, by fear of enormous penalties or imprisonment, but NOW, what keeps you back, O Christian. Fears for the loss of property, liberty, or life, would have been a wretched plea for the loss of the soul, how much less the fear of ridicule from ungodly friends ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... on a grave face, and throw down the book in a passion and declare 'tis enough to turn the heads of half the girls in England; I do solemnly protest, my dear madam, I mean no more by what I have here advanced, than to ridicule those romantic girls, who foolishly imagine a red coat and silver epaulet constitute the fine gentleman; and should that fine gentleman make half a dozen fine speeches to them, they will imagine themselves so much in love as to fancy it a meritorious action to jump out of a two ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... mute, pathetic anxiety. No assurances of mine, no assumed cheerfulness and fortitude could remove it. I even tried to laugh at it, but my laugh only brought the tears into her eyes. Neither reason nor ridicule could root it out—a ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... of a brute. As the Lord appeared first to the ass and spake by her, he had but little reason to boast that his eyes were opened by the Lord. The keen spiritual insight and the ready power of speech with which the female sex has been specially endowed, are often referred to with ridicule and reproach by stolid, envious observers of ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... eyes,—fringed, soft eyes; hard eyes; eyes great and small; eyes here so poignant with beauty that the sob struggles in your throat; eyes there so hard with sorrow that laughter wells up to meet and beat it back; eyes through which the mockery and ridicule of hell or some pulse of high heaven may suddenly flash. Ah! That mighty pause before the class,—that orison and benediction—how much of my life it ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... though as such are officially recognized by the United States government. It was conferred upon them in the early days by the interpreters, either through ignorance of the language, or for the purpose of ridicule. The name which they themselves acknowledge, and they recognize no other, is in their language Ap-sah-ro-kee, which signifies ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... there a gayer, a more prepossessing Cavalier. He could charm even a Roundhead. The harsh and Presbyterian-minded Bishop Burnet, has told us that 'he was a man of a noble presence; had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning everything into ridicule, with bold figures and natural descriptions.' How invaluable he must have been in the Common-rooms at Oxford, then turned into guard-rooms, his eye upon some unlucky volunteer Don, who had put off his clerkly costume for a buff ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Lovelace to Belford.— Has an interview with Mr. Hickman. On what occasion. He endeavours to disconcert him, by assurance and ridicule; but finds him to behave ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... injuries done to the moral principles of other men. These form a class of offences of which no human law takes any adequate cognizance, but we know that they possess a character of the deepest malignity. Deep guilt attaches to the man who, by persuasion or ridicule, has unhinged the moral feelings of another, or has been the means of leading him astray from the paths of virtue. Of equal, or even greater malignity, is the aspect of the writer, whose works have contributed to violate the principles of ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... its normal tone. Garry's merry laugh and good-natured ridicule had helped, so had the discovery that none of his friends had had anything to do with Gilbert's fall. After all, he said to himself, as he strode up the street beside his friend, it was "none of his funeral," none ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is probable these stories, in ridicule of Clarendon, are nowhere recorded. Cardinal Jean Balue was the minister of Louis XI. of France. The reader will remember him in Sir W. Scott's "Quentin Durward." He was confined for eleven years in an iron cage invented by himself in the Chateau de Loches, and died soon after ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... was discovered by the other boys at the school that our student was in the habit of driving a cow, he was assailed every day with laughter and ridicule. His cowhide boots in particular were made matter of mirth. But he kept on cheerfully and bravely, day after day, never shunning observation, driving the widow's cow and wearing his thick boots. He never explained why he drove the cow; for he was not inclined to make a boast of his charitable ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... from poverty and obscurity by his indomitable energy and perseverance, until he carves his name with scholars and statesmen on the temple of fame, it is the climax of meanness in any one to twit him of his humble origin, and hold him up to ridicule because his parents are poor and unhonored. And so when the gentleman tells us that the theatre was born in a cart, and was originated by those who had neither learning nor character, it is no argument against it, in my view, when ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... parents, Who in the darker days of childhood carefully watch'd me. Much indeed it has been my lot to endure from my playmates, When with their knavish pranks they used to embitter my temper. Often I little suspected the tricks they were playing upon me: But if they happen'd to ridicule Father, whenever on Sundays Out of church he came with his slow deliberate footsteps, If they laugh'd at the strings of his cap, and his dressing-gown's flowers, Which he in stately wise wore, and to-day at length has discarded, Then in a fury I clench'd my fist, and, storming and raging, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... executed, that the association of political power with landed possessions should be the sheet-anchor of his system; and, strong in the support afforded by that material bond of sympathy, he did not hesitate to ridicule the foibles of those "patricians"—to use his own somewhat stilted expression—who, whilst they sneered at his apparent eccentricities, despised their own chosen mouthpiece, and occasionally writhed under ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... sleeves, some eccentricity of cut, or some discord or untidiness. But these will be but transient flashes in a general flow of harmonious graciousness; dress will have scarcely any of that effect of disorderly conflict, of self-assertion qualified by the fear of ridicule, that it has in the crudely competitive ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... experience a feeling of sharp resentment against the new owner of the Legonia cannery and his wild scheme. But again the foremost citizen had come to the fore and quieted their fears, turning them into open contempt and ridicule by his words: ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... not idle: nor were the beauties, who were to be there, less anxiously employed; however, Miss Hamilton found time enough to invent two or three little tricks, in a conjuncture so favourable, for turning into ridicule the vain fools of the court. There were two who were very eminently such: the one was Lady Muskerry, who had married her cousin-german; and the other a maid of honour to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... laugh of disbelief and ridicule. "Ba su, master, the Lord was watching you. There was two silver bits inside that coffin, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for it. She sets a limit to the rights of wit, again, in Pride and Prejudice, when Elizabeth defends her sharp tongue against Darcy. "The wisest and best of men," ... he protests, "may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke." "I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good," says Elizabeth in the course of her answer. "Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can." The six novels that Jane Austen has left us might be described as the record ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... please; Know'st thou not the difference yet, between a Man Of Money and Titles, and a Man of only Parts, As they call them? poor Devils of no Mein nor Garb: Well, 'tis a fine and frugal thing, this Honour, It covers a multitude of Faults: Even Ridicule in one of us is a-la-mode. But I detain ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... confess, as little straightlaced as most young men. But I had not known that the thing was to touch me close. Could I forgive her my angry humiliation and my sore heart, bruised love and burning ridicule? I could forgive her for being all she now was. How could I forgive her for having ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... leave him ashamed of any display of emotion before his father. I can see that it even begins to exasperate Duncan a little, to be shut out behind those incontestable walls of reserve. It's merely, I'm sure, that the child is so terribly afraid of ridicule. He already nurses a hankering to be regarded as one of the grown-ups and imagines there's something rather babyish in any undue show of feeling. Yet he is hungry for affection. And he aches, I know, for the approbation of his male parent, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned. And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... to give her life something of the joy and sweetness that God owed her. I felt I wasn't much use in the world, and that would be something to do. And so one day—though not without much mental tossing, for we are curiously, complexly built, and I dreaded ridicule and the long years of comment from unsympathetic strangers—I asked her to be my wife. Her surprise, her agitation, was painful to witness. But she was not incredulous, as before; she had learned to know that I ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "you have no more imagination than a turnip-top! You must possess the taste of a Goth or Vandal, to turn such noble lines into your low ridicule!" ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... he had mistaken his powers. His argument was formal and long-winded. His uncouth style roused the ridicule of his hearers. His voice was weak, his breath short, his manner disconnected, his utterance confused. His pronunciation was stammering and ineffective, and in the end he withdrew from the court, ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... on the psychological possibility of such a friendship founded on reciprocal ridicule, or rather on a comedy of comparisons. But I will say of this harmony of humours what Mr. H. G. Wells says of his harmony of states in the unity of his World State. If it be truly impossible to have such a ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... muffs—and if you let him keep it this time, when there's upwards of L40,000 worth of jewels in the house, it will be nothing less than a national disgrace, and you and your wretched collection of bunglers will be covered with deserved ridicule." ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... OF THIS PARISH, the feigned author of a volume of memoirs written by Arbuthnot in ridicule of Burnet's "History of My ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... child, they are afraid of each other. They are afraid the richer slaves, who are able to comply with the demands will laugh at them and ridicule them, and that is why they strain every nerve to follow the god's wishes. A slave, whether she is rich or poor, grows more cringing year by year, until at last she loses all her individuality, and becomes a mere echo ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... in common with other painters of his school. But he has this peculiarity, that the remarkably ugly girls in his pictures are taken from his own family, which, according to tradition, was a group of little monstrosities, whom he held up to the ridicule of the world. Thus nearly all the Dutch painters chose to paint the least handsome of the women whom they saw, as if they had agreed to throw discredit on the feminine type of their country. Rembrandt's ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levelers. The man who would be always superior should ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... other known to ichthyologists, and the lowest organisation found in the class; it somewhat resembles the sand-eels of Britain in habits, like them moving with extraordinary rapidity through the sand. By dint of bribery and ridicule, we had at length managed to get our boatmen to work tolerably well; and when we were alike well roasted by the sun and repeatedly drenched, besides being tired out and hungry, they had become quite submissive, and exchanged their grumbling for merriment. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... religion. He claimed for his meanest subjects the right to serve God in their own way; but all the power of his example was at work in drawing the people from the old faith. He hesitated not to supplant evangelical professors and pastors by free-thinkers, and at any time to bring ridicule on any religious fact or custom. That thin-visaged man in top boots and cocked hat, surrounded by his infidels and his dogs at Sans Souci, dictated faith to Berlin and to Europe. He would have no one within the sunshine of royalty whom he could not use ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... clique, or of public service corporations. For a while such a man has public sentiment with him, for all communities have a desire to be moral. But when it becomes clear that he really means what he says, and that important incomes will be hurt, powerful forces set on him with abuse and ridicule, try to wreck his business or health, and sidetrack his political ambitions. An eminent editor in the Middle West, speaking before the Press Association of his State several years ago, said: "There is not a man in the United States today who has tried honestly to ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... in J.C.'s admiration for herself, that she failed to see his growing preference for Maude, whom she frequently ridiculed in his presence, just because she thought he would laugh at it, and think her witty. But in this she was mistaken, for her ridicule raised Maude higher in his estimation, and he was glad when at last an opportunity occurred for him to declare ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak, above all, any little child, to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste, never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is coarsest in the ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... note of bitterness an his voice as he uttered these words. She was aggrieved that he should think that his rough appearance would make any difference to her. And yet she understood his feelings. His sensitiveness would make him most unwilling to go to a place where he would be looked upon with ridicule, and at the same time embarrass the ones he happened ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... transplant, might grow and flourish in an alien soil, and now, by way of a second venture, he proposed to acclimatize the terza rima. He was under the impression that Hayley, whom he had held up to ridicule as "for ever feeble, and for ever tame," had been the first and last to try the measure in English; but of Hayley's excellent translation of the three first cantos of the Inferno (vide post, p. 244, note 1), praised but somewhat grudgingly praised ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... passages from the New Testament, and so many of them, that from the fragments of his work which remain, we could gather all the principal facts of the birth, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, if the New Testament should be lost. If Paine quotes the New Testament to ridicule it, no man can deny that such a book was in existence at the time he wrote. If he takes the pains to write a book to confute it, it is self-evident that it is in circulation, and possessed of influence. So Celsus' attempt to reply to the Gospels, and his quotations from them, are conclusive ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... difficult one for her at school. Caroline and Catherine seemed to think they had played a fine joke, and accused her of running home when they were waiting for her. Faith had resolved not to quarrel with them, but apparently the sisters meant to force her into trouble, if sneering words and ridicule ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... enforce the lesson upon the ignorant; like most benefactors of mankind he had to do his work unaided. Patiently and perseveringly he pushed forward his investigations. The aim he had in view was too great for ridicule to daunt, or indifference to discourage him. When he surveyed the mental and physical agony inflicted by the disease, and the thought occurred to him that he was on the point of finding a sure and certain remedy, his benevolent heart overflowed with unselfish gladness. No feeling ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... we have seen the Bourbons. The King is a round, fat man, so fat that in their pictures they dare not give him the proper "contour" lest the police should suspect them of wishing to ridicule; but his face is mild and benevolent, and I verily believe his face to be a just reflection of his heart. Then comes Monsieur,[118] a man with more expression, but I did not see enough to form any opinion of my own, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... two thinks and a half still due him," I said. "Who ever gave that guy a license to splash ink all over a production and hold actors, authors and managers up to ridicule? Did you ever hear of an actor or an author or a manager getting out a three-sheet which held a newspaper up ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... of the accident, explained all so plausibly, and in such a matter-of-fact manner as left little more even to be surmised. His brief and prosaic history of the affair concluded with the following implied tribute to his companion, which still further relieved her from fear of ridicule: ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the party carried a deep Indian basket, from the top of which a number of spruce twigs protruded. They formed what has been designated as the ring of occultation, and while doing so they shouted and screamed and puffed the talismanic "thòhay" in a way that left no doubt of their intention to ridicule. Their extravagant motions added to the significance of their intonation. When the ring opened the boys sat on the ground and began to sing and beat a drum. The old man sat at a distance of about ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... moment, and he delivered a speech which was never forgotten by those who heard it. It was the great speech of the session, exhibiting a wonderful comprehension of human nature and the springs of political action; logic the most profound; the most biting ridicule, and pathetic eloquence. His speech exhibits such a summary, in its allusions, to the scope of the arguments of the opposition, and throws such light upon the growth and state of parties, that we make long ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Freemasonry should interfere with your necessary vocations, for these are on no account to be neglected; neither are you to suffer your zeal for the institution to lead you into argument with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it. ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... fortune to encounter strong opposition was Fraeulein Hochmeyer, the singing mistress. She was a most conscientious teacher and a clever musician, but so intensely German in both accent and methods that she offended the British susceptibilities of her pupils, and inspired more ridicule than respect. Poor Fraeulein meant so well, it was really very hard that her efforts did not meet with better results. She treated her classes exactly as she would have dealt with similar ones in Germany; but what might ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Principles gives the exposition and the Dialogues the defence. One of his main objects was to combat the prevailing materialism of the time. A theory so novel was, as might be expected, received with widespread ridicule, though his genius was realised by some of the more elect spirits, such as Dr. S. Clarke. Shortly afterwards B. visited England, and was received into the circle of Addison, Pope, and Steele. He then went to the Continent in various ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... with Chrysantheme; Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here, ready to hand, the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other country than Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and dwarfing influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into ridicule, nothing will ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that the muscles are developing faster than the bones, making delicate adjustment impossible. There is painful sensitiveness over this, especially with boys, as hands and feet must be in the open, and they will easily construe any criticism or ridicule into a desire to be ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... contrary there is a ruggedness in his manner that jars upon the sense. It is easy for the light and supercilious to turn him into ridicule. And those who will not be satisfied with the soundness of his matter, expounded, as he is able to expound it, in clear and appropriate terms, will yield him small credit, and listen to ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... One longs to help them; to call a halt upon their senseless struggles; to reason with them and explain how all the psychic force they waste might, if exerted in constructive thought, bring everything they wish to pass. Mrs. Bloomer assures me they only ridicule those who venture to interfere, and it will take at least a Saturn century to so much as start them in the right direction. Our settlement is their only hope, she says, and even we ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... triumph. He had feared the man's ridicule. He had expected to see his lean shoulders go up in silent contempt. And then, he knew, would have followed a storm of sarcasm and "jollying" from Sandy and the others. With quick wit he seized his opportunity, bent on using Bill's influence ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Bessie professed no enthusiasm for music, it would be wasting time that might be more profitably employed to teach her; and a recommendation to the considerate indulgence of Mademoiselle Adelaide, who was in charge of the junior class, saved her from huffs and ridicule while going through the preliminary ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... I heard of these numerous applications; and the sad thing to me is, that it is NOT especially hard. Some innovation must be made: have you and your directors not the courage to begin? I am willing to endure all the ridicule that ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... origin of this nickname is traced to a satire written in the reign of Queen Anne, by Dr. Arbuthnot, to throw ridicule on the politics of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... and the children of the Covenanters, make on the ungraceful and severe elements which marked the struggles of their great fathers, are as ill-timed as if a son, whom a mother had just borne from a burning dwelling, should criticize the shrieks with which she sought him, and point out to ridicule the dishevelled hair and singed garments which show how she struggled for his life. But these are they which are "sown in weakness, but raised in power; which are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory:" even in ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... comments as well as what had gone before, and was ready with her magnanimity. It was this which constituted her a truly able tactician. She shifted her tack before the shout of malicious exultation and ridicule could have been raised at her discomfiture. By a dexterous sleight of hand, she shuffled her cards and altered her suit. In a moment Mrs. Spottiswoode was winking and nodding with the matrons interested in the news of the night. She arrested a good-humoured ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... me, so that I had no reason to ask him that question. Whenever I found him disengaged, I took the opportunity of conversing with him, and he very readily entered into discourse with me, especially after the victory which he obtained over Thersites, who had accused him of turning him into ridicule in some of his verses. The cause was heard before Rhadamanthus, and Homer came off victorious. Ulysses pleaded ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... orthodox priests clung where possible to their parishioners, or lived in destitution abroad; the constitutional priests, though still frowned on by the Directory, were gaining ground at the expense of the Theophilanthropists, whose expiring efforts excited ridicule. In fine, a nation weary of religious experiments and groping about for some firm anchorage in the midst of the turbid ebb-tide and its ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... I am wishful to ridicule," answered the Minor Poet. "Love is a wondrous statue God carved with His own hands and placed in the Garden of Life, long ago. And man, knowing not sin, worshipped her, seeing her beautiful. Till the time came when man learnt ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... Buckingham's Letter to the unknown author of a short answer to the Duke of Buckingham's Paper (1685). In hopes of converting him to Roman Catholicism James sent him a priest, but Buckingham turned his arguments into ridicule. He died on the 16th of April 1687, from a chill caught while hunting, in the house of a tenant at Kirkby Moorside in Yorkshire, expressing great repentance and feeling himself "despised by my country and I fear forsaken by my God."[3] ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... was to attack a senseless antipathy, hold it up to ridicule, show its absurdity, analyze its constituent parts, and suggest some easy and safe way for Americans to rid themselves of unchristian and un-American prejudices, then has he again conspicuously failed to carry out such purpose. He asserts ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... are invulnerable all over, even in the heel, against logic. The martel or mace, the battle-axe, the great double-edged two-handed sword must deal with follies; the rapier is no better against them than a wand, unless it be the rapier of ridicule. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... comes from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of the people's hard necessities. It has the vitality of the people's strong convictions. The people have work to be done and our party is here to do that work. Abuse will only strengthen it, ridicule only hasten its growth, falsehood only speed its victory. For years this party has been forming. Parties exist for the people; not the people for parties. Yet for years the politicians have made the people do the work of the parties instead of the parties doing the work ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... like the others, excited the ridicule of supercilious critics, it has proven superior to them and to time. As early as the year 1869, the Comedie Francaise—the standard French stage—added Mercadet to its repertory; and more than one company in other theatres have scored ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... in the Freimuthige (The Liberal), and the merits of the so-called modern school and its leaders, was the subject of a paper war, waged with the bitterest acrimony of controversy, which did not scruple to employ the sharpest weapons of personal abuse and ridicule. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the cloud was due to the good offices of Hasbrouck. He saw matter of public interest in the swollen jest and threw the columns of the Sunday Times open to Jimaboy. Under the racking pressure, the sentimentalist fired volley upon volley of scathing ridicule into the massed ranks of anxious inquirers, and finally came to answering some of the choicest of the letters ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... extreme love of truth could have hindered me from concealing this part of my story. It was in vain to discover my resentments, which were always turned into ridicule; and I was forced to rest with patience, while my noble and beloved country was so injuriously treated. I am as heartily sorry as any of my readers can possibly be, that such an occasion was given: but this prince happened to be so curious and inquisitive upon every particular, that ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... until the Supreme Court had decided that Governor Waite had the right and the power to unseat the Board—not till then was the City Hall surrendered; and even so, at the next election (the Beast turning polecat), "Bloody Bridles" Waite was defeated after a campaign of lies, ridicule, and abuse, and the men whom he had opposed were returned ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... point of recklessness, and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was merely "stickin' up for Sparrell's judgment" without any reference to her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed away; the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and envious expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the reservoir had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that only a miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular afternoon of the picnic; that even if it ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the eye of nobody, and lifting my coffee with fingers which trembled with embarrassment at this too great conspicuosity! Those mournful hours passed, one by the year, while the idling bourgeois and the travellers made ridicule; and the rabble exhausted all effort to draw plays of wit ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... Athanasius asked me to assist him against the Arians. At that time, they had confined themselves to attacking him with invectives and ridicule. Since then, however, he has been calumniated, deprived of his see, and banished. Where is he now? I know not! People concern themselves so little about bringing me any news! All my disciples have abandoned ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... happiness, health and good repute—and go out into the world and cry out the pain of my spirit! Therefore I am not to be silenced by poverty and sickness, not by hatred and obloquy, by threats and ridicule—not by prison and persecution, if they should come—not by any power that is upon the earth or above the earth, that was, or is, or ever can be created. If I fail tonight, I can only try tomorrow; knowing that the fault must be mine—that if once the vision of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... two demurred at this, but the bulk of the party knew well the ridicule that the truth would attach to them, and the result was that between them a story carrying the marks of probability was invented, and, thus armed against the laughter of the State, the party set out for the ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... peace been made on any terms but those of the surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union, Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the Emancipation Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a century, with his every written word now in print and with all the facts of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the endless studies, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... was received with enthusiasm. The other numbers followed in rapid succession, each being applauded to the echo. The class grinds were hailed with keen relish. Each girl solemnly rose to take her medicine in the form of mild ridicule ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... of the great, persuades his brother-in-law to buy an option to a ninety-acre lot on the assumption that "Guggenheim" is to build a golf course there, obtains $10,000 from the local banker and then becomes badly involved in his deceptions. After Peter endures the ridicule of his townsfolk and the ire of the banker there suddenly appears on the scene a representative of "Guggenheim" who wants the acreage not for a golf course but an air field, and promptly turns over a check for $75,000 for ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... in their own tongue, the standard they have formed of purity and taste in composition must necessarily be a narrow one. The translator, however, would ill-discharge his duty, if for the sake of avoiding ridicule, he sacrificed fidelity to the original. He must represent his author as he is, not as he should be to please the narrow taste of those entirely unacquainted with him. Mr. Pickford, in the preface to his English translation of the Mahavira Charita, ably defends a close adherence to the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his self-control; he spoke with a quietness which made Katharine rather anxious that he should explain himself, but at the same time she wished to annoy him, to waft him away from her on some light current of ridicule or satire, as she was wont to do with these intermittent young men of ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... be learned without being wise. The world is full of such persons to-day when education is too cheap. Concha steered his flock as best he could through the stormy paths of insurrection and civil war. He ruled with a rod of iron whom he could, and such as were beyond his reach he influenced by ridicule and a patient tolerance. True to his cloth, he was the enemy of all progress and distrusted ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... of Villefranche, Marseilles, and Genoa, and that these armaments would be lost; he reminded him that he had sent Pierre d'Urfe, his grand equerry, on in advance, to have splendid accommodation prepared in the Spinola and Doria palaces. Lastly, he urged that ridicule and disgrace would fall on him from every side if he renounced an enterprise so loudly vaunted beforehand, for whose successful execution, moreover, he had been obliged to sign three treaties of ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sir. I said, 'Yes, Mrs. Willis, I did draw that caricature. You will scarcely understand how I, who love you so much, could have been so mad and ungrateful as to do anything to turn you into ridicule. I would cut off my right hand now not to have done it; but I did do it, and I must tell you the truth.' 'Tell me, dear,' she said, quite gently then. 'It was one wet afternoon about a fortnight ago,' I said to her; 'a lot of us middle-school girls were sitting together, and I had a pencil and ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... was always my maxim to endeavour to touch a lady's heart without wounding her ears. And, indeed, I found my account sometimes in observing it. But, resuming my gravity—"Hussy, said I, do you think I will have my old friend thus made the object of your ridicule?—Suppose a challenge should have ensued between us on your account—what might have been the issue of it? To see an old gentleman, stumping, as he says, on crutches, to fight a duel in defence of his wounded honour!"—"Very bad, Sir, to be sure: I see that, and am sorry for it: for ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... county family: there is one show of breeding vulgarity seldom assumes—simplicity. No sign of recognition would pass between her husband and herself: by one stern refusal to acknowledge his advances, she had from the first taught him that in the shop they were strangers: he saw the rock of ridicule ahead, and required no second lesson: when she was present, he never knew it. George had learned the lesson before he went into the business, and Mary had never required it. The others behaved to her as to any customer known to stand upon her dignity, but she made them no ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the yard, with the intention of bringing them carefully down on deck, where it struck me they would be quite safe. Luckily for us, the men were too busy heaving, and too stupid, to be very critical, and we escaped much ridicule. In a ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad—the criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule, contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word to a{347} mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as slavery ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... unwarrantable desires, that they never once attend to the business of the place; the sound of the preacher's words do not so much as once interrupt them. Some have their minds wandering among idle, worldly, or vicious thoughts; some lie at catch to ridicule whatever they hear, and with much wit and humour, provide a stock of laughter by furnishing themselves from the pulpit. But of all misbehaviour, none is comparable to that of those who come here to sleep. Opium ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... too much startled and excited to pause and ridicule his companion's superstitious notions, and he took a few steps quickly to the rough, square wall, from a faint hope that the sound might have come from there; but as he touched the wall, a strong grip was on ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... done it,' said Elfride, looking dubiously at Mrs. Swancourt, as if in doubt whether she would meet with ridicule there. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... are participators in the profits of the house as well as recipients of salaries. They are an extremely dignified body of artists, with the utmost reverence for the proprieties of life. For these societaires Lemaitre entertained a profound dislike, and loved to sneer at them and ridicule their dignity. One day these artists were giving a grand dinner to some manager when a knock was heard at the door of the banquet-hall. "Who is there?" cried several voices.—"A man," answered Lemaitre outside, "who wishes to have some converse with you, and tell you once for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... sick, insane, deaf, dumb, lame or blind, at the same time, or be all upon crutches, tottering with age or infirmities. Any form of government that was so constructed as to admit the possibility of such cases happening to a whole Legislature would justly be the ridicule of the world; and on a parity of reasoning, it is equally as ridiculous that the same cases should happen in that part of government which is called the Executive; yet this is the contemptible condition to which an Executive is always subject, and which is often happening, when ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... known that the feeling of fear is often very intense among children; and where it is due to ignorance it is not right to laugh it away. Doing so affords no explanation. The ridicule may cause the child to hide his fear, but will not drive the feeling away. Since the feeling of fear is so closely connected with the strange and unknown, the only way that it may be directly overcome is by making the child familiar with the ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... city, especially in Adelaide, where they are so numerous as to excite the ridicule of the less devout Victorians. I forget how many there are; but, at any rate, they bear a very small proportion to the public-houses, against which I think they may fairly be pitted. Still, there are plenty of them; ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... unvaried series of disappointments, and leaves the mind, at its close, in painful depression. This effect has been considered an evil, and regarded even as similar to that produced by the doctrines of Voltaire, Bolingbroke, and Rousseau, who combined every thing venerable on earth with ridicule, treated virtue and vice, with equal contemptuous indifference, and laid bare, with cruel mockery, the vanity of all mortal wishes, prospects, and pursuits. Their motive, for all this, we need not pause, in this place, to examine. But a distinction may be made between the melancholy of ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... were very, very red. Sammy wished that the street might open and swallow him. Dot was too young to feel the smart of ridicule quite so keenly. She hugged up the Alice-doll to her bosom and squealed just ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill |
