"Silly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then, such a silly fellow as this? It did not seem possible that anyone not a fool would rob his employer, and immediately hurry home, to throw the stolen money before his dear old mother, with some wonderful story of how he had found it on the road, ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... getting on faster than they are keep on wasting their precious evenings and their half-holidays, saying nothing but the most frivolous, frothy, senseless things—things which do not rise to the level of humor, but the foolish, silly talk which demoralizes one's ambition, lowers one's ideals and all the standards of life, because it begets habits of superficial and senseless thinking. On the streets, on the cars, and in public places, loud, coarse voices are heard ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... year; sometimes they swelled out at the sides, or rose in great puffs, or turned under in heavy rolls, or hung in braids and curls and pig-tails; they were made of human hair, of horsehair, goat's-hair, calves' and cows' tails, of thread, silk, and mohair. They had scores of silly and meaningless names, such as "grave full-bottom," "giddy feather-top," "long-tail," "fox-tail," "drop-wig," etc. They were bound and braided with pink, green, red, and purple ribbons, sometimes all these colors on one wig. They were very heavy, and very hot, and ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... upon this affair of the singing-bird as a freak that must end—and then perhaps his Grace, who was a charming young man, would return to his senses. There also was her sister, a long, fair girl, who looked sentimental, but was only silly. There was a little French actress, like a highly finished miniature; and a Spanish danseuse, tall, dusky, and lithe, glancing like a lynx, and graceful as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... came across to his chair, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him gently on the forehead. "Never mind, dear. You mustn't let these silly people annoy you. I'm sorry now I worried you to-night about my brother, Jimmy. I might have left it until the morning, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... had said. "Sometimes you have real silly notions, Ellen." Fanny said it adoringly, for even silliness in this girl was in a way worshipful to her. Ellen, with her heart still softened almost to grief by the love shown her on the day before, had yielded, but she was glad when they arrived at the photograph ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... various beauties, and, by the contemplation, of these, of partaking of an endless feast. In consequence of the slavery to which the other reduces you, you are cramped as to such enjoyments. By accustoming you to be pleased with ridiculous and corruptive objects, and silly and corruptive changes, she confines your relish to worthless things. She palsies your vision, and she corrupts your taste. You see nature before you, and you can take no pleasure in it. Thus she unfits you for the most rational of the enjoyments of the world, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... from the steamer's return. Their predecessor had left some torn books. They took up these wrecks of novels, and, as they had never read anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused. Then during long days there were interminable and silly discussions about plots and personages. In the centre of Africa they made acquaintance of Richelieu and of d'Artagnan, of Hawk's Eye and of Father Goriot, and of many other people. All these imaginary personages became ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... Perishing, in like manner, from the selfsame cause! The terrible conjunction of the event, Close with the provocation, stands apart, A social beacon in all histories; And yet we take no heed, but still rush on, Under mixed sway of greed and vanity, And like the silly boy with his card-castle, Precipitate ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... teaching for only two years, and they say I'll be nominated for county superintendent if I'll take it. Of course I won't—it seems silly—but if it were you, now, it would be a first step to a life that leads ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... Merry Wives of Windsor, says that but for his "admirable dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the town," says Luce in the Comedy of Errors. "Like silly beggars, who sitting in stocks refuge their shame," occurs in Richard II; and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... counting." He wagged a stubby finger contemptuously at the rest of his boat's crew. "Half this crowd don't know enough English to take a wheel, and the rest of them come from happy Dutchland, where they don't make soldiers, bless their silly eyes. I can tell you I'm not feeling sweet about it myself. I left a bran new suit of clothes and an Accra finger-ring on ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... than that the Commissioners from the Confederated States will be received here and recognized by Abraham Lincoln. I will now predict that this Republican Party that is going to enforce the Laws, preserve the Union, and collect Revenue, will never attempt anything so silly; and that instead of taking Forts, the troops will be withdrawn from those which we now have. See if this does not turn out to be so, in less than a ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... false customs; dare to frown on fashion; dare to resist oppression; dare to assert their rights; dare to be persecuted for righteousness' sake; dare to do their own thinking and acting; dare to be above the silly pride and foolish whims and prudish nonsense that enslave little minds. Woman is now bound hand and foot by custom and law. She is only a thing. She is not a conscious independent personality. She is not recognized as a self-directing, responsible agent. She plays a second part. She is shut out from ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... threw themselves into the river, where they perished. Tallard, being surrounded, was taken near a mill behind the village of Sonderen, together with the marquis de Montperouz, general of horse, the major-generals de Seppeville, de Silly, de la Valiere, and many other officers of distinction. While these occurrences passed on the loft wing, Marsin's quarters at the village of Oberklau, in the centre, were attacked by ten battalions under the prince of Holsteinbeck, who passed the rivulet with undaunted resolution; but before he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... take pictures with the cataract as a background, do they not? I am sure I have seen photos of groups taken at Niagara Falls; in fact, I have seen groups being posed in public for that purpose, and very silly they looked, I must say. I presume that is one of the things that has prejudiced me so much against ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... thank you, sir; but there are circumstances over which you have no control. The title and estate must descend to the lawful heir; and that silly fellow, Peter, will in future claim the affections of yourself, and of my dear Lady Etheridge. It is on her account, more than my own, that I feel so ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... in a fashion that made it impossible, and in this manner Nan lost her first engagement with her husband. Not that it mattered particularly, she told herself, grand marches were rather silly things, and yet she could not avoid a feeling of thwarted pique at being ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... the worst of it nayther," complained Garry in his humorous way. "Though the vain, silly ould crayture bate Banagher for flirtin'—an', indade, bates ivviry other of her sex, God bless 'em, that I've ivver clapt eyes on yet—that quare little Frenchy chap, her husband, he, the little sparrow, must neades git jallous, an' makes out it's all my fault, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... here, but they are merely silly, I think, and very unnecessary, though a little conventionality wouldn't hurt anyone. Sometimes I think it would be better if we were all at home, for Belgians are particular, and I hate breeches and gaiters for girls, and a silly way of going on. I do wish people ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... stare now, or look indignant or surprised. It served you perfectly right; what did you expect me to say? Or why do you ask such silly questions? Of course, it can take you wherever you please, precisely as if it were ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... what a perverse mind Pao yue possessed, and they one and all were much surprised that he should be so silly beyond the possibility of any change; and when now they heard the question he asked, about the two characters representing "natural," they, with one accord, speedily remarked, "Everything else you understand, and how is it that on the contrary you don't know what 'natural' ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... her husband). There now, that's just like your silly pate, to believe all they tell you. He's gone and put the lad to shame all for nothing. The best thing is to let him live as he is living, with his master. His master will help us in our present need, and give us ten roubles, ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... account as lovers. Then as to the face, an honest look, one that answers for the heart within, is of more value than any shape or colour, or eyes, or teeth, or trifles like them. The last may do for girls, but who thinks of them at all, in a hunter, or a warrior, or a husband? If there are women so silly, Judith is ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Johnny sniffed. "Don't be silly," said he. "Though I do think a nice cat with a few kittens might cheer her up a little, and we could steal enough milk, by getting up early and tagging after the milkman, to feed them. But I wasn't thinking of giving her or old Mr. Payne cats and kittens. I wasn't thinking ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... from your letter that you lend credence to certain envious and scoundrelly persons, who, since they cannot manage me or rob me, write you a lot of lies. They are a set of sharpers, and you are so silly as to believe what they say about my affairs, as though I were a baby. Get rid of them, the scandalous, envious, ill-lived rascals. As for my suffering the mismanagement you write about, I tell you that I could not be better off, or more faithfully served and attended to in all ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... ruse after ruse to get a smile out of her servant girl. "Something is amiss. I wonder if one of those well-dressed Kafirs from Potchefstroom had been prowling about the farm and instilling in Anna's simple mind all kinds of silly notions, about town flirts and black dandies, silk dresses in Potchefstroom and similar vuilgoed (rubbish). And if a town Kafir is going to marry Anna, where on earth am I going to get a reliable servant to whom I could ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... to overcome it, Jane," Lady Walderhurst said. "I'm afraid it's because of her colour. I've felt a little silly and shy about her myself, but it isn't nice of us. You ought to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and all about that poor religious Uncle Tom, and Legree, and Eliza crossing the river on the blocks ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she wouldn't want another. The Mount Music people were across the Channel by this time, ahead of the gale too. Luck for them! Old Mrs. Twomey had told him they were gone, and she said they would never come back again. Silly old ass, what did ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... which the imagination has been exhausted, to depict enamoured youth superior to every terrestrial being; and they are convinced that, above all others, the object of their own particular choice has never yet been equalled. Such fanciful and silly people, when time and experience have something allayed their ardour, will often find their dainty taste offended at discovering a mole on the bosom, or a yellow shade in the neck, or any other trifling bodily blemish, which was as visible before marriage as after, had they looked with ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... assume, that he is an irreconcilable enemy of our constitution and democracy; secondly, you must be convinced, that all his operations and contrivances are designed for the injury of our state. None of you can be so silly as to suppose, that Philip covets those miseries in Thrace, (for what else can one call Drongilus and Cabyle and Mastira and the places which he is said now to occupy?) and that to get possession of them he endures hardships and winters and the utmost peril, but covets not the harbors ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... But I love her already!" cried Victoire. "Sonia, but why did you say she was a thief? That was a silly thing ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... said Sissie, "that although I was there last night and told her exactly what to do, she's had a quarrel this morning with the landlord of the studio? Well, she has. You know the A.R.A. on the first floor has been making a lot of silly complaints about the noise—music and so on—every night. And some other people have complained. I could have talked the landlord round in ten minutes! Eliza doesn't merely not talk him round,—she quarrels with him! Of course it's all up. And as if that wasn't enough, a County ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... pigeons, and the Terran Federation had people here watching both him and Emmert. Rainsford could be a Federation agent—a roving naturalist would have a wonderful cover occupation. But this Big Blackwater business was so utterly silly. Nick Emmert had too much graft on his conscience; it was too bad that overloaded consciences couldn't ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... right, Mr. Smith. Ev'rybody in town knows Aunt Jane. Why, Ma says folks say she'd save ter-day for ter-morrer, if she could. But she couldn't do that, could she? So that's just silly talk. But you wait till you see ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... this naughty person stepped in and robbed us of the only possessions worth having? No, no! It is not that he has done us harm—the one cheerful item in a universe of stony facts is that no one can harm anybody except himself—it is merely that we have been silly, precisely as silly as if we had taken a seat in the rain with a folded umbrella by our side.... The machine is at fault. I fancy we are now obtaining glimpses of ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... to get away alive, and flew back to his own family and old friends. But one of the crows had seen him in the barnyard and told the others how silly he had ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... to me a foolish law, unjust and unreasonable. Even now I can see no harm in picking a six-leaved clover. And I—I had not seen the Emerald City, then, nor you, and I thought a girl who would make such a silly Law would not be likely to ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... of Mamsie, Joel's grasp on Davie's arm dropped, and he slunk back. Then Ben pulled him into a place next to him, quiet was restored, and Polly was soon launched on one of her wonderful stories, "Mr. Kangaroo and the silly little Duck," and presently they were all so absorbed that no one noticed the sun was shining brightly, until they heard a voice, "Well, I declare, sitting down in the day-time ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... Swift wrote the two little books which first made him famous. These were The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a Tub. The Battle of the Books rose out of a silly quarrel in which Sir William Temple had taken part as to whether the ancient or the modern writers were the best. Swift took Temple's side and wrote to prove that the ancient writers were best. But, as it has been said, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... counsel with you regarding the philosophers, and now, urged by Selene and her complaints, I have determined to defer the consideration of the question no longer. There is a class which has recently become conspicuous among men; they are idle, quarrelsome, vain, irritable, lickerish, silly, puffed up, arrogant, and, in Homeric phrase, vain cumberers of the earth. These men have divided themselves into bands, each dwelling in a separate word-maze of its own construction, and call themselves Stoics, Epicureans, Peripatetics, and more farcical names yet. Then they ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... in a line that should live. Well, having satisfied you that Beattie was really a poet, I can now return to my argument that an eleven-inch Byron cannot stand next to a four-inch Beattie, and be followed by an eight-inch Cowper, without making the shelf look silly. Yet how can I ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... only toils for fame I pronounce a silly Billy. I can't dine upon a name, Or look dressy in a lily. And—oh shameful truth to utter!— I won't live on ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... That's it! That explains the whole business. These idiots take us for spirits, since they saw us scramble out from the lake without any boat in sight. Spirits! It's almost too silly to believe." ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... married your father, I ran away. I had loved my mother most passionately; but I was jealous. I was exacting. I was proud. I could not bear that my mother should put anyone in my place. I ran away. I went to my Aunt Fanny. She was a vain and silly woman. She praised me for running away. She said I had spirit. She ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... owing it if you hadn't saved my life. When you saved it I was five hundred to the good, and I'd have left that much behind me. Now I'm on the rocks, because you insisted on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.' I 'insisted'! Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on—blame me, if I didn't keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. Get pay?—why, I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... wild-haired youth in tarred boots and a pink shirt, exclaimed, uncovering his pale gums in a silly grin, that Ziemianitch had got his skinful early in the afternoon and had gone away with a bottle under each arm to keep it up amongst the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... well-hated devil, 'let us only get those fribble sinners for a night at a time to forget their misery. And it will not cost us much to do that. Only let us offer them in one another's houses a supper, a dance, a pipe, a newspaper full of their own shame, a tale full of their own folly, a silly song, and He who loved them with an everlasting love will soon see of the travail of His soul in them!' Yes, my fellow-sinners, Lucifer and his infernal crew know us and despise us and entrap us at very little trouble, till He who travailed for us on the tree covers His ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... about Dr. Barritz must have been, being thoughtless, very silly, or you would not have written of him with such levity, not to say disrespect. Believe me, dearest, he has more dignity and seriousness (of the kind, I mean, which is not inconsistent with a manner sometimes ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... pleasing exhibition of the thorough kindness of a manly heart than this picture of the great philosopher sitting day after day by the bedside of his pupil, watching eagerly every indication of change, and only consenting to leave the room for a time at night out of consideration for the silly jealousy of the valet, who thought the tutor's presence an invasion ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... even in a dream, How we brought home a silly little pup, With a big square head and little crooked legs That ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... conclusion should trouble himself any more to look for truth. If a mere absurdity could make its way out of a little fishing village in Galilee, and spread through the whole civilized world; if men are so pitiably silly, that in an age of great mental activity their strongest thinkers should have sunk under an absorption of fear and folly, should have allowed it to absorb into itself whatever of heroism, of devotion, self-sacrifice, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Christendom; and represents to my perception or imagination a perfect and beautiful embodiment of Christian outward life from the inward, purely and tenderly. At the same time, I should tell you that Sette says, 'I might have liked it ten years ago, but it is too young and silly to give me any pleasure now.' For me, however, it is not too young, and perhaps it won't be for you and Mr. Martin. As to Sette, he is among the patriarchs, to say nothing of the lawyers—and there we ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... gain a broken head, the silly lad," observed Sir Thomas; "but we must not have you weeping. Mistress Margery, about the matter. I will send to him and induce him to return. I had purposed considerably increasing his pay, or obtaining some post for him in which he would ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... if it was not good Spanish, there was no Spanish half so good. Alas! Agnes was, indeed, unsophisticated, to be in such ecstasies with a midshipman's love-letter. Once more she hastened to her room to weep, but it was from excess of joy and delight. The reader may think Agnes silly, but he must take into consideration the climate, and that she ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Byron with great affection, almost as a father would of a son, which was extremely grateful to my enthusiastic feelings for this great poet. He contradicted the silly assertion that Manfred was only an echo of his Faust. He extremely regretted that he had never become personally acquainted with Lord Byron, and severely and justly reproached the English nation for having judged their illustrious ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... "You silly goose, you foolish bird with web feet, I will kill you now for such folly." With these words the dog sprang for the goose, but only a small feather was caught in his mouth as the frightened bird rose high in the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... Quality, laid down as necessary to constitute a Fable wholly perfect, was this, That as there must be but one Action, that Action may not be any trifling, silly Circumstance of a Shepherd's Life. As one Swain's telling the other how poor and bare he is grown. Or one complaining to the other, that his Flock has had some Mischance, or the like; which is as much as can be gather'd out of the Pastorals form'd after the ordinary ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... against great riches, if they are the gift of fortune and the product of virtue: what reason has he for grudging them good quarters: let them come and be his guests: he will neither brag of them nor hide them away: the one is the part of a silly, the other of a cowardly and paltry spirit, which, as it were, muffles up a good thing in its lap. As he is capable of performing a journey upon his own feet, but yet would prefer to mount a carriage, just so he will be capable of being poor, yet will wish to be rich; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... Mrs. Power, rubbing one hand over another, her favourite action. "Come, Gwladys, don't cry—don't be silly; as your sister is here, she will stay with us a week or so. Can you, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... soil. The grasses do not strike their roots deep in towards the centre, like the oaks, but they are the more useful and necessary vegetable of the two. The cheap, but perpetual activities of life grow out of this upper stratum of our being. How silly to try to be wiser than Providence! Don't tell me about the vain illusions of self-love. There is nothing so real in this world as Illusion. All other things may desert a man, but this fair angel never leaves him. She holds a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... well knew that his legitimacy was doubted, and that if an illegitimate child he had no right whatever to the throne. He seemed to wish to prove that he was the son of Peter III. by imitating all the silly and cruel caprices of that ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... months of November and December of last year, my friend, the Illustrated London News, had a number of faithful sketches showing Gipsy life round London; these, it seems, with the truthful description I have given of the Gipsies, in my letters, papers, &c., encouraged by the untruthful, silly, and unwise remarks of a clergyman, not overdone with too much wisdom and common sense, residing in the neighbourhood of N—- Hill, seemed to have raised the ire of the Gipsies in the neighbour hood of L—- Road (I will not go so far as to say that the minister of Christ Church did it designedly, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... "I am too silly just now," she apologised meekly. "To me, he only spoke of it long after, when coming wounded from France. Then I saw how the bitterness was still there, changing the noble thoughts of his heart. That is the trouble with Dyan. First—nothing ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... "I hate fire making. And it does seem as though my week for playing fireman comes around twice as often as it should." Wyn had moved rather too near to the darting flames, and Grace suddenly pulled the captain of the club aside. "Don't stand so near, Silly!" she cried. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... silly critter," said Mose. "I'll come and make you Mrs. Jenkins; but I want to get the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Mrs. Barker audaciously, "he could get rid of it elsewhere. He had another offer, but he thought yours the best. So don't be silly." ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... been attentive to his duty," he added, "while I've been detained by a silly fellow about a complaint against a poacher. My namesake, young Wycherly, has not got back yet, though it is quite two hours past his time; and Mr. Atwood tells me the admiral is a little uneasy about ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... up again, but it's not so sure about my getting back my strength. I tell you again, lad, that the grape bit deep. It hurts me all the time to think I was lured under those guns by a silly old fiddler and a couple of silly sailors dancing to his silly tune. You're a good lad, Peter, I give you credit for it, and since, beside myself, only one on board the schooner was saved, I'm glad it was you and not a member ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... much celerity as a mountebank's Mercury upon a rope from the top of a church-steeple, every one charged with a mouthful of 'coming! coming!' This sudden clatter at our appearance so surprised me that I looked as silly as a bumpkin translated from the plough-tail to the play-house, when it rains fire in the tempest, or when Don John's at dinner with the subterranean assembly of terrible hobgoblins. He that got the start and first approached us of these greyhound-footed ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... don't understand. At the worst, this is some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest, and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... having her acquire egotism. Silly conceit is the death-blow to higher attainments and ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... "But, you silly girl, holding such a secret as you held, you could have made your fortune," insisted the practical Princess, for the principles which had been instilled into her during a youth spent in Chicago had not been entirely ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... 'Why, Mrs. Cockburn, for I think she is a virtuoso,—like myself.' 'Dear Walter,' says Aunt Jenny, 'what is a virtuoso?' 'Don't ye know? Why, it's one who wishes and will know every thing.' Now, sir, you will think this a very silly story. Pray, what age do you suppose this boy to be? Name it, now, before I tell you. 'Why, twelve or fourteen.' No such thing; he is not quite six years old. He has a lame leg, for which he was a year at Bath, and has acquired the perfect ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... Bob was, as usual, overflowing with mischief, and, failing in finding the willing helper which he had expected in his old companion, took revenge in aiming a great many of his pranks at him. Such senseless, silly things as he did to annoy! Tip spread his slate over with a long row of figures which he earnestly tried to add, and, having toiled slowly up the first two columns, Bob's wet finger was slyly drawn across it, and no trace of the answer so ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... Shakespeare, we have the Cambridge farce or comedy on contemporary literature, the Return from Parnassus (1602?). The University wits laugh at Shakespeare,—not an university man, as the favourite poet, in his Venus and Adonis, of a silly ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... said the grasshopper. "If you go straight, of course you can only see just what is under your feet; but if you go first this way and then that, then you see everything. You are nearly as silly as the ants, who never see anything beautiful all their lives. Be sure you have nothing to do with the ants, Bevis; they are a mean, wretched, miserly set, quite contemptible and beneath notice. Now, I go everywhere, all round the field, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... some of the white soldiers delight in frightening the women on the plantations with doleful tales of plans for putting us in the front rank in all battles, and such silly talk,—the object being perhaps, to prevent our being employed on active service at all. All these considerations they feel precisely as white men would,—no less, no more; and it is the comparative ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... thought that the boy would be pleased. But not so. He turned away, and said, "I am not so silly as you think." ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... their senses by magic arts and incantations. But I have never experienced anything of the sort until to-day. Compose yourself, my dear good comrade, and go with me back to the shore." Fadrique laughed fiercely, and answered, "Set aside your silly delusion, and if you must have everything explained to you, word by word, in order to understand it, know then that the lady whom you came to meet in the shrubbery of this my garden is Dona Clara Mendez, my only sister. Quick, therefore, ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... be—was a hard fate for a miserable mortal who had failed to comprehend the true conditions of justification. We are not told that he was a vain boaster. He could not have advanced so near to the door of Heaven if he had not been really a decent man, though vain and silly. Behold, it was a dream! The dreams which come to us when sleep is deep on the soul may be sent direct from some revealing power. When we are near waking, the supernatural insight may be refracted ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... being the same always and every where, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, were righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God; but were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man's judgment, and measuring by their own petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race. As if in an armory, one ignorant of what were adapted to each part should cover his head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... the lawn{20} Or ere{21} the point of dawn Sate simply chatting in a rustick row; Full little thought they than That the mighty Pan{22} Was kindly com to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly{23} ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... a much simpler affair than a presentation at home; one need not even wear veils and feathers, and the trains of our white satin gowns were modest as to length. It was silly to be nervous about such a little thing, but I quite shook with terror. I think it was the being passed along by A.D.C.'s that unnerved me, but when I reached the last and heard "To be presented," and my name shouted out, I stotted (do you know the Scots word to stot? It means to walk ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... with a hoarse laugh. "Stop that till I see whether the door is sported. Why, you silly fellow, what harm have the aristocrats, as you call them, ever done you? Are they not doing you good at this moment? Are you not, by virtue of their aristocratic institutions, nearer having your poems published, your genius recognized, etc. etc., ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... sign of patriotism in every part of Poland; just as the Marseilles March and la Parisienne are in France and the Netherlands the signals of liberalism. During Mr. Pitt's administration an organ grinder was committed to Newgate for playing "Ah! ca ira" in the streets. This was a silly step; but the fellow excited little commiseration, for the tune was the war-whoop of a few savages who were at that time deluging France with blood. It affords another proof, however, of the power ascribed by statesmen to instrumental music, uninterpreted by words in exciting ideas ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... I shall talk to you about is the SHEEP. People call them "silly sheep," because they are so easily frightened, and show very little sense of judgment when running away. This is owing to their being driven about. We seem to think it right to make every creature afraid of us, and by that means we weaken their faculties; or, to ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... know that Barbara has never had one thought of this. Her mind is completely occupied with her study, the pleasures and the novelties that each day is bringing her. She does not conceal anything. She has no reason to do so. She and Bettina are no silly girls who think of a lover in every young man they meet. They are as sweet and fresh and free from all sentimentalities as when they were children. Barbara would be frightened could she hear you talk,—should she for ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... the stork did," she thought, gleefully. "This morning Girlie had everything her way, and we played little silly baby games till I felt as flat as the dish that fox is eating out of. But she had a beautiful time. To-morrow morning I'm going to be stork, and make my conversation so deep she can't get her little baby mind ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... intellectual mode of stimulation that human research has succeeded in discovering.[6] But the material basis of this stimulation unhappily we draw from the soil of one sole nation—and that nation (are we ever allowed to forget?) capricious and silly beyond all that human experience could else have suggested as possible. In these circumstances, it was not to be supposed that we should neglect any opening that offered for making ourselves independent of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... I hear—I never go to the inn myself, but a local policeman learns all the gossip in a small place like this—the subject is brought up in the bar-room every evening, either by the innkeeper or Charles, and discussed till closing time, when the silly villagers go home, huddled together like a flock of sheep, not daring to look round for fear of seeing the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... ask for their baptismal names, not for anything so silly. Ah! oh—I thought you said they were in ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... conflicting interests to be conciliated and carried forward under one crown, two statesmen alone bear the burden of public affairs and are not overwhelmed by it. Was France less prolific of political capacities than Germany? The rather silly game of what are called "constitutional institutions" carried beyond bounds has ended, as everybody knows, in requiring a great many offices to satisfy the multifarious ambition of the middle classes. It seemed to Rabourdin, in the first place, natural to unite the ministry of ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... shriek like nothing I ever heard in my life. I saw a light shine through the trap, and then I heard a sort of moaning. Last, I heard a bang, and the light went out. I staggered down the passage half silly, started to run, and ran straight into ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... course, we have to stand Lil in the school and gymnasium. She won't kill us; she's only silly," went ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... time I was the least bit afraid—However I was a silly old woman. Do look at her talking to your mother. Oh, of course, you were looking at her already. You ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... me so everlastingly silly!" she said fiercely trying to swallow the rising sobs, "but ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... Metzengerstein. Least of all had the more than feudal magnificence, thus discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy Berlifitzings. What wonder then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction, should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply—if it implied anything—a final triumph ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... conscious of a silly desire to take her in his arms, bundle of vanities though he knew her to be. He hated himself for being so ordinary. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... instances. By the way, do you know what definition Webster gives of a dandy in his large dictionary? It is worth remembering. Suppose we turn to it. "A dandy," says he, "is one who dresses himself like a doll, and carries his character on his back." It is a most capital definition; but the silly fellow will pass for something else where he is not known. He will make a great swell, and some people will believe he is a gentleman. Indeed, it would not be strange if he should pass himself off, one of these days, upon some young lady who is quite ignorant of this kind of currency, as ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... either. She would have laughed heartily if the subject had been mentioned to her, and declared that she should as soon have thought of marrying old Mr Willoughby himself, whom she always called her uncle. Fortunately no one had ever been silly enough to talk to her about the matter, and she and Roger had never had what might prove a barrier to their ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... silly mistakes," said Nigel. "There are a good many handsome girls who receive comparatively little attention. But the hounds of war are let loose, when one of your swollen American fortunes appears. The obviousness of it 'virtuously' makes me sick. It's ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is sadness, it is grief? You grow thinner every day; you are as pale as a ghost; just at this moment, your complexion is gone; you will end by being a regular fright. They say that it is the fashion to be pale nowadays; a silly notion, indeed, but it will not last, for complexion makes ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... yourself with it, if there's the only way," he went on with a surly smile. "Heaven knows why she must send such a silly message at all; but since she must, she'd better have ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... am to you. I don't claim to be a Sunday-school teacher, but I average up pretty well, after all. I appear to a disadvantage. When Raimon died I took hold of his business out here and I've made it pay. I have a talent for business, and I like it. I've got enough to be silly with if I want to, but I intend to take care of myself—and I may even marry again. I can see you're deeply involved in a love affair, Mose, and I honestly want to help you—but I shan't say another word about it—only remember, when you need help you come to Martha Jane ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... turn and has gone. Were we not a happy family together for weeks?" La Signorina smiled wanly. "To-morrow I am going to write Mr. Hillard; I am going to tell him the story. From your point of view you may write me down a silly fool, but one's angle of ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... mettle sees an almost sublime sight, a prophet unmoved by the meretricious charms of a queen of hearts. Neither of these exaggerated views will survive, we believe, a simple reading of the interviews themselves, especially in Knox's account of them. He is not merciless nor Mary silly. One would almost fancy that she liked the encounter which matched her own quick wit against the tremendous old man with his "blast against women," his deep-set fiery eyes, his sovereign power to move and influence the people. He was absolutely a novel personage ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... I said, as we strolled towards the Twelve Golden-Haired, "I hope you have no silly notions about confession, about telling the literal truth and so on. Because I want you to promise me that you will lie stoutly to your wife about Sylvia Joy. You must swear the whole thing has been platonic. It's the only ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... and that they were keeping her late, and I should go to bed. But Mary is so unfortunate in everything that happens to her, and her own melancholy talk about herself keeps hanging on my mind so, that I have fears on her account which would not distress me about any one else. It seems inexcusably silly to think such a thing, much more to write it down; but I have a kind of nervous dread ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... of the poor soul with his clamor for a job; the satisfied, brutal egotism of Brome Porter, who lived as if life were a huge poker game; the overfed, red-cheeked Caspar, whom he remembered to have seen only once before, when the young polo captain was stupid drunk; the silly young cub of a Hitchcock. Even the girl was one of them. If it weren't for the women, the men would not be so keen on the scent for gain. The women taught the men how to spend, created the needs for their wealth. And the social game they were instituting ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Ethics, as such, are too cold to interest most folks. So we sugar-coat 'em with flowery speech and sleight-of-hand and try to give 'em authority with a big threat. Then some hard-head like Charleton says, because the sugar-coating is silly, that there is nothing to ethics. Which is where he talks ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... sciences, in monarchy, in rank; is dazzled by rascals; turns up millions for you like centimes; and middle-class people are not with him middle-class people at all, but giants. Why inflate what is unimportant, and waste description on silly things? He wrote one novel on chemistry, another on banking, another on printing-machines, just as one Ricard produced The Cabman, The Water-Carrier and The Cocoa-Nut Seller. We should soon have books on every trade and on every province; then on every town and on the different stories ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... young, had inherited a half-interest in what was then the biggest shoe-factory in that part of the world. My father was his partner. Philip—dear me! it seems like a lifetime ago!—came to visit us, and I came home from an Eastern finishing school. Sue, those were silly, happy, heavenly days! Well! we were married, as I said. Little Phil came, Anna came. Still we went on spending money. Phil and I took the children to Paris,—Italy. Then my father died, and things began to go badly at the works. Phil discharged ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... "I am not so silly or so wicked as to try to persuade you that my mother will open her arms to you. She knows neither ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... generously left them here and there a mile or two of their native soil; sometimes as a proof that to care for or instruct them, was waste of time and money; sometimes only as a text whereon to hang a dozen silly speeches, which stung none the less for their silliness; and it was but a poor compensation for all she thus suffered when some one would speak out heartily and with knowledge, in defence ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... enabled her to indicate by touches, however light, any oddities of demeanor or conduct on the part of friends or acquaintances to persons whose standards were more or less like her own. There was a silly young woman who, after several years of matrimony, was ambitious of pushing her conquests beyond the matrimonial limits; and with this object in view did her best to be visible driving about with a succession of guiltlessly apathetic admirers. "Poor ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... into the Gardens at Twickenham is a silly little book, of which a few little copies were printed some years ago for presents, and which now sets up for itself as a vendible book. It is a most inaccurate, superficial, blundering account of Twickenham and other places, drawn up by a Jewess, who has married twice, and turned Christian, poetess, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... natives, and the saints' calendar has been considerably enlarged in that pseudo-holy land. Nearly every week supplies a festival, with all its mummery of banners, and processions, and priests dressed as if for the altar-scene in "Pizarro," and squibs, and fireworks, and silly citizens kneeling in the dust, and hats off all round. Very much like a London Guy-Fawkes procession is the whole affair, and of about like influence upon the morals ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... stoked the less exercise they took and more explosive they grew. Then tempers began to wear away, and men fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, for they had nothing else to think of. The tone of the repartees changed, and instead of saying light-heartedly: I'll knock your silly face in," men grew laboriously polite and hinted that the cantonments were not big enough for themselves and their enemy, and that there would be more space for one of the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... "Silly child! She is a tiny woman, with a fair little face and not a bit of grandeur about her. You yourself will look like a queen ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... seated, but as the ceremonies are in different parts of the immense building, they rush wildly from one to the other; with their black veils they look like furies let loose! I stayed five hours to-day to see the Pope wash feet, which was very silly; for I saw mother wash them much more ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... "Silly ass!" commented Bertie. "Anyone would think that to save a few hundred human lives was a thing to be ashamed of. It was the same thing in South Africa; always slinking off into the background when the work was done, till everyone took you for nothing but a looker-on—a chap who ought to wear ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... head and made a growling noise. "Don't be silly," he said. "It's just that this guy might have some information, but he won't say anything to me about it. He's a social worker or something ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... it was invention only. These things he told about he had not experienced himself. For they badly needed a leader, these children; and Daddy just missed filling the position. He was too 'clever,' his imagination neither wild nor silly enough, for children. And he felt it. He threw off rhymes and stories for them in a spirit of bravado rather—an expression of disappointment. Yet there was passion in them too—concealed. The public missed the heart he showed them in his ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... there were four windows? How silly of her. The second from the right was a small oval of glass, or rather, a glass-covered picture of desert scene. Odd that she had forgotten about that picture. Oh well, ...
— Moment of Truth • Basil Eugene Wells
... of some prehistoric anthropologist, who had a clear conception of "infancy" as "the period of inability to speak,"—for infans signifies neither more nor less than "not speaking, unable to speak." The word, like our "childish," assumed also the meanings "child, young, fresh, new, silly," with a diminutive infantulus. The Latin word infans has its representatives in French and other Romance languages, and has given rise to enfanter, "to give birth to a child," enfantement, "labour," ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of the Goblin danced and twinkled in their caverns; a merry, careless laugh came bubbling forth as it answered, "I will not leave your shop, nor will you throw me from the window, nor yet kill me, Nick Baba. Why, you silly fellow, the sharpest tool on your bench cannot draw blood from me, and that blackened lapstone, if driven with all the force of your great arm through my seeming substance, would leave me sitting here still, not to mock, but to try ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... Breathless spoke something, and sigh'd out the rest; Which so prevail'd, as he with small ado, Enclos'd her in his arms, and kiss'd her too: And every kiss to her was as a charm, And to Leander as a fresh alarm: So that the truce was broke, and she, alas, Poor silly maiden, at his mercy was. Love is not full of pity, as men say, But deaf and cruel where he means to prey. 300 And now she wish'd this night were never done, And sigh'd to think upon th' approaching sun; For much it griev'd her that ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... fancied I could see a ravenous hawk upon a tree, abashed at Mr. Prigg's presence and superior ability; and a fluttering timid lark seemed to shriek, "Wicked bird, live and let live;" but it was the last word the silly lark uttered, for the hawk was upon him in a moment, and the little innocent songster was crushed in its ravenous beak. Still the cuckoo sang on in praise of Mr. Prigg, with now and then a little note for Mrs. Prigg; for the cuckoo is a very gallant little bird, and Mrs. Prigg was such a heavenly ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with colour'd vellum, leaves of gold, Fair dangling ribbands, leaving what is best, On the great Writer's sense ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... supper and told her parents all the story. Mr. Dove, now that she seemed to take a serious view of the matter, affected to treat it as absurd, although when she had laughed, his attitude, it may be remembered, was different. He talked of the silly Zulu superstitions, showed how they had twisted up the story of the death of her baby brother, and her escape from the flood in the Umtavuna river, into that which they had narrated to her. He even suggested that the whole thing was nonsense, part ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... "Silly goose! nothing is the matter," answered his friend, "only you are a little grander than you thought you were: you are promoted to be an officer—a lieutenant, in fact; so now you can ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... those blessed with admission to the Muses' temple, for what it is that you have ordered this soldier to be this night admitted to a place so far above his rank in life? Permit me to say, we ought not to waste, in frivolous and silly jests, the time which is sacred to the welfare of the empire, as every moment of your ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... be silly. Why, father's fifty, and not exactly in training," she laughed. Then, seriously: "But for goodness' sake don't say such things—for ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... now going, by one false step, to blast my fondest hopes: by this match you are going, in one hour, to beat down and destroy all the bright prospects, all my plans for promoting your future well-being and consequence in life! Do you believe, can you for a moment be so silly as to imagine, that I have toiled from morning till night, that I have laboured with such incessant assiduity, scarcely giving myself time to enjoy even my meals; and do you think that I have been so anxious, merely to get money, merely to ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... frequently letters are not returned or burnt when an affair of the heart is broken off. Correspondence between lovers should at all events be tempered with discretion; and, on the lady's part particularly, her affectionate expressions should not degenerate into a silly ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... leave the letters?" Maria appeared to be full of doubts, even though Aggie's plan seemed so promising. "The boys will be sure to come here the first thing, and we shall look rather silly carrying the letters around to the desks when they ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... "Very sensible," she agreed wrily. "And awfully silly, Joe. I know what kind of a career I want! What other fascinating topic do you know to ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... be silly, Ames. Do you know that I can make serious legal trouble for you for your part in libelling me ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... eyes laughing, yet as swiftly sobering again. "But it is foolish of us to waste time in such silly speeches. There is too much waiting attention. Fortunately this house is not without its secrets, for when built by my grandfather this ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... me from Wimbledon to come out and dine, and there had been an implication in Adelaide's note—judged by her notes alone she might have been thought silly—that it was a case in which something momentous was to be determined or done. I had never known them not be in a "state" about somebody, and I dare say I tried to be droll on this point in accepting their invitation. On finding myself in the ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... it is singularly silly in me to turn the page in this manner, and that I should have followed your example, or rather ensample, as some great judges of style usually write it. I see by the newspapers, that Fingal is to be published at Edinburgh in a few days, pray bring ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... beyond. Henry, who was a few yards in advance of his companion, paused at a short distance from the free, and being somewhat over-heated, took off his cap to wipe his brow, laughingly observing—"In good truth, Suffolk, we must henceforth be rated as miserable faineants, to be scared from our path by a silly wench's tale of deerstealers and wild huntsmen. I am sorry I yielded to her entreaties. If Herne be still extant, he must be more than a century and a half old, for unless the legend is false, he flourished in the time of my predecessor, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... excuse them. If they had been lovers out of a book, they would have talked in dithyrambs or long perfervid paragraphs. Since they were real, they could bear witness to their happiness only by spooning and being a little bit silly. But—it was part of their happiness—they did ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... myself how we can contrive to get your grandmother's consent. At any rate we must set to work very prudently and cautiously, do you understand? I have only taken you into our confidence that you may look forward to it and have something to be glad of at night, when you are such a silly little thing as to keep your eyes open like the hares, instead of sleeping like a good child. If things go well, you may be with Paula to-morrow perhaps—think of that! I had quite given up all hope of managing it at all; but now, just now—is it not odd—just within these ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of humor, however. She saw that he meant to be amusing, and she gave the little fleeting smile one gives to a child who is being rather silly. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... which is the earliest known specimen of Castilian prose; and several smaller works, now collected under the general title of 'Opuscules Legales' (Minor Legal Writings). It was long supposed that he wrote the 'Tesoro' (Thesaurus), a curious medley of ignorance and superstition, much of it silly, and all of it curiously inconsistent with the acknowledged character of the enlightened King. Modern scholarship, however, discards this petty treatise from the list of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... begin to laugh everybody else will. It may hurt Milly, she is so gentle and dear, and you are their best friend. I won't have it! I won't! I'm tired, anyway, of having fun made of all the sacred things in life. All of us swing around in a silly whirl and when a woman like Mildred begins to live her life in a—er—natural way, we—ridicule! She is brave and strong and works hard; and she has the real things of life and makes the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Jack Hersey shouted; and he turned and repeated the remark for the benefit of a buckboard in the rear. Amy thought Jack very stupid and silly, and in her own heart, she promptly ranged herself on the side of her young minister. There was nothing subtle or elusive about her changes of mood, and Stephen profited by each relenting. For a few blissful moments, accordingly, he now basked in the full ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... to punish thee, For the wrong thou'st done to me Silly swallow, prating thing— Shall I clip that wheeling wing? Or, as Tereus did, of old,[2] (So the fabled tale is told,) Shall I tear that tongue away, Tongue that uttered such a lay? Ah, how thoughtless hast thou ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... to a passing train. "It's only the funny little freight cars!" she finally explained, rather ashamed that she had let her feelings escape in that way. "They look so silly to us! They seem about a third the size of the ones at home. Really, these remind me of a picture in my history-book, of the first train ever run ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... the distinction of a good master, most assuredly not in the way of a vain silly hint of self-recomdation; but purely for the sake of giving a caution, too often neglected, against parents, or those charged with the education of youth, placing children, at the age when their muscles are most flexible, their limbs the most supple, and their minds the most ductile, and who ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... slightly authoritative voice. "The Hallelujah Chorus era has gone at last to join all the Victorian relics. And the nation is drifting musically. Of course we have a few composers who are being silly in the attempt to be original, and a few others who still believe that all the people can stand in the way of home-grown products is a ballad or a Te Deum. But what we want is an English composer with a soul. I'm getting quite sick of heads. They are bearable in literature. But when it comes ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... wasted some weeks on his vindication of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of that volume, which had excited a host of feeble and ill-mannered attacks. His defence was complete, and in excellent temper. But the piece has no permanent value. His assailants were so ignorant and silly that they gave no scope for a great controversial reply. Neither perhaps did the subject admit of it. A literary war generally makes people think of Bentley's incomparable Phalaris. But that was almost a unique occasion and victory in the history of letters. Bentley himself, the ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... spoke that this explanation was correct. The dull rabbits, the sleepy Persian cats, and the silly sheep had died outright of lethodyne; the cunning, inquisitive raccoon, the quick hawk, and the active, intense-natured weasels, all most eager, wary, and alert animals, full of keenness and ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... It was a silly thing to do. When she came back to her own room, her cheeks were burning with shame. The next morning she was miserable in fear lest he discover her weakness. He did not, though he marveled at a new tenderness in her that had been ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Katy had awakened all that was weak and silly in Sybil's nature, she now put forth her full powers of attraction, but met only with defeat. Katy, and even Helen, was preferred before her—both belles of a different type; but both winning golden laurels from those who hardly knew ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... mitrailleuses horribly spitting, the musketry cracking, and then look into the interior of the closed rooms. People are talking, eating, and smoking; waiters go to and fro. There are women too. The men are gay and silly. Champagne bottles are being uncorked. "Ah! ah! it's the fusillade!" Lovers and mistresses are in common here. This orgie has the most telling effect, I tell you, in the midst of the city loaded with maledictions, a few steps from the battle-field where ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... he asked, "dine off one dish at a gourmet's banquet? And why should I restrict myself to one course at the most richly-spread table in Europe? One must love at least two women to appreciate either; and, did the silly creatures but know it, a rival becomes ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of improvement in my dull existence. A French survey party arrived too, and set to work, but as they had not enough boys with them, I could not join them. I spent my days as well as I could, collected a few zoological specimens, and read Mr. Ch.'s large stock of French novels until I felt quite silly. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... precedents, persons should still be found to object to Darwin's discovery, not because they were anxious to maintain the dignity of the heavenly bodies, but because they were so ludicrously anxious to maintain the dignity of their own! Good it is for man, puffed up with such silly pride, ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... to Witless Bay. If one of them should cut his foot with an axe, or drop a tree on one of his comrades, it would be enough (with the skipper out of the way) to raise the suspicion of witchcraft and curses in their silly, mad souls again. And then what would happen? What would happen to Flora, the helpless, wonderful, most beautiful creature in the world. He stared back along his path, but the many curves and breaks in the cliff hid from him every sign of Chance Along. Not a roof, chimney, or streamer ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... reservation of questions of "honor and vital interests." Honor and vital interests—could any words be more vague and indefinite? Are these not the very cases which interested nations are least competent to decide? A complete answer to that silly reservation is found in our hundred years' peace with Great Britain. As John W. Foster, that keen student of our diplomatic history, has said, "The United States can have no future dispute with England more seriously involving the territorial integrity, the honor of the ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... dustman might delve; the Employers' Liability Act is a tricky business and I am only insured against my own death—which always seems to me silly. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... 1815. I almost fancy I am dreaming when I look back on the miraculous incapacity of the persons who were then at the head of our Government. The emigrants, who, as it has been truly said, had neither learned nor forgotten anything, came back with all the absurd pretensions of Coblentz. Their silly vanity reminded one of a character in one of Voltaire's novels who is continually saying, "Un homme comme moi!" These people were so engrossed with their pretended merit that they were blind to everything else. They not only disregarded the wishes and the wants of France; which in overthrowing ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... singularity of this strange family—may consider it an evidence of weakness to pay such regard to the silly requisitions of a superstitious ancestor—deny themselves so many comforts—make themselves so singular—engage those with whom they married to conform to the rules of their house, and instil the same into their children from generation to generation! But whatever ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... age as weakness of will consequently, in the ideal of the philosopher, strength of will, sternness, and capacity for prolonged resolution, must specially be included in the conception of "greatness", with as good a right as the opposite doctrine, with its ideal of a silly, renouncing, humble, selfless humanity, was suited to an opposite age—such as the sixteenth century, which suffered from its accumulated energy of will, and from the wildest torrents and floods of selfishness In the time of Socrates, among men only of worn-out ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... because I was so dashed proud when I got it. I thought it marked an epoch in my life; that it was a token of success. Well, when I was coming over to your side of the water, to try out the Golden Eagle among all the English flyers, I was silly enough to think if she did any good, I'd stick this poor old stripe on her somewhere, for auld lang syne. Now I'd rather give it ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... d'Italie', with their pages, turrets, chatelaines; bull-fighters, Spanish ladies; vivandieres, beguiled away from their homes under the pale of the church, "near a stream of running water, by a gay and handsome chevalier," and many other such silly things—Amedee will remember them always! They bring back to him, clearly and strongly, certain happy hours in his childhood! They make him smell again at times even the odor that pervaded the Gerards' house. A mule-driver's song will bring up before his vision the engraver working ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet |
