"Bad-tempered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I want to warn you that I am a bad-tempered man. You can write home if you like and tell them that you met me coming out of the German Embassy and the Russian Embassy and the Italian Embassy, with a list of prices in my hands for different pieces of information. Is that what ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... body of twenty and the sense of ten. I am putting it very badly, but—but I was hateful years ago too. I think one always is, perhaps. I remember at school there were self-righteous little girls; they were narrow and intolerant, easily shocked, and rather bad-tempered. The others were absurdly vain, sentimental, sly. All that comes away afterwards if one is ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... said Festing. "They have only a deaf tourist and two tired climbers, who seem sleepy and bad-tempered, at ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... scream themselves hoarse. Of all the spoilt, bad-tempered little ruffians you ever encountered, they are the worst, and there is not a soul on board who can manage them except myself. Yesterday they got so cross that I was almost in despair, and it was only by pretending ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... face was unusually sallow in tint, and there was a dark, upright line between his brows which his relations knew and—dreaded. The genial, sunshiny individual of a few evenings back had disappeared, and a decidedly bad-tempered young man now ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... only SEEMS like that at first. She is grave, but not bad-tempered. On the contrary, she is both kind and cheerful. If you could only have seen ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... she could not endure the dog, a fat, cross beast who snarled and yelped at her when she made his toilet, and who lay on his back with all his legs in the air and a most idiotic expression of countenance when he wanted something to eat, which was about a dozen times a day. The cook was bad-tempered, the old coachman was deaf, and Esther the only one who ever took any notice of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... perished because they did wrong to make a lion. Who could expect a good result from creating a bad-tempered creature? Thus, if fate opposed, even a virtue that has been painfully acquired does not profit, but rather injures. But the tree of manhood, with the water of intelligence poured into its watering-trench of conduct about the vigorous root of ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... cowardice with his natural ferocity. A few months ago I witnessed a curious example of this combination in the elephant's character. A magnificent specimen had been lent to me by the Commissariat Department at Jubbulpur; this was a high caste bull elephant named Bisgaum that was well known as bad-tempered, but was supposed to be courageous. He had somewhat tarnished his reputation during the last season by turning tail upon a tiger that rushed out of dense bush and killed a coolie within a few yards of his trunk; but this ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... fascinating, and, while resting between the pieces of that interminable programme she was, in her white dress and with her brown hands reposing in her lap, the very image of dreamy innocence. The mature, bad-tempered woman at the piano might have been her mother, though there was not the slightest resemblance between them. All I am certain of in their personal relation to each other is that cruel pinch on the upper part of the arm. That I am ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... you see that Crowded Owl following us? He's been hanging round us all the afternoon. He's up to something. Don't you remember the captain told us he was a bad-tempered fellow?" ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... me; I am a jealous, bad-tempered wretch, but," lower still, "it is only because I love you ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... days have been to poor Vi!" exclaimed Rosie, "even in spite of the home-coming of her husband, which has always before this made her so happy. In fact, it has been a dreadful time to all of us; and nobody to blame except that bad-tempered Lulu. ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... bad-tempered elephant. His tusks never grew more than half-size. Bull elephants whose tusks do not grow to their full size are sometimes bad-tempered; they seem to have a grudge against everybody. Such elephants are always treated with special kindness, ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... in two days at No. 2, Baker Street, waiting for the return of Miss Bacon or for some message which might explain her absence, but nothing and no one came. On the morning of the third day she found that the stout and bad-tempered man had carried out his vague threats. The place had been taken possession of, already they were removing the typewriters and tables under the direction of a bailiff. Even the plate bearing Miss Bacon's name had vanished, and boards announcing the top flat to let flaunted themselves ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... bad-tempered with that snarling, loud-talking mob of harpies who wore them out every morning with their quarrelsomeness and unreasonable haggling. Every one of them shouted at you as if you had no ears, reenforcing every other word with an interjection from that inexhaustible ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... himself, took an unsteady step forward toward the door, and it was then that they all realized how exceedingly drunk the man was. He had come to the dinner in a state of partial intoxication, which merely made him bad-tempered, but now the spirits that he had partaken of so plentifully was burning itself into ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... violent-natured," said Joan. "But don't you think it wise to remember that you cannot make the kind of scene here that you can in your own house? We are a bad-tempered pair, and we behave rather like fishwives when we are in a rage. But when we are guests in ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... professor," who had returned from a German university, whom I met in Boston last year on my way from England to Germany, truly summed up the situation of athletics in German schools by saying, "German boys are bad-tempered losers and ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... and a fawn, came picking their way cautiously along the edge of the gully, sometimes flattening their ears, sometimes necks outstretched, ears forward, peering ahead at the young and bad-tempered pig. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... little thing, and when Carl came home, he found it quite well again. One day, just after he got back, Mrs. Montague drove up to the house with a canary cage carefully done up in a shawl. She said that a bad-tempered housemaid, in cleaning the cage that morning, had gotten angry with the bird and struck it, breaking its leg. She was very much annoyed with the girl for her cruelty, and had dismissed her, and now she wanted Carl to take her bird and nurse it, as ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... owned by a man named Creakle, who had begun by raising hops, and had gone into the school business because he had lost all of his own and his wife's money and had no other way to live. He was fat and spoke always in a whisper, and he was so cruel and bad-tempered that not only the boys, but his wife, too, ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... tenderness on the brave and cheerful. Autolycus repeats the burden of an old song with the truth that "a merry heart goes all the day, but your sad ones tires a mile a!" and what he says any one may notice, not only in ourselves, but in the inferior animals also. A sulky dog, and a bad-tempered horse, wear themselves out with half the labor that kindly creatures do. An unkindly cow will not give down her milk, and a sour sheep will not fatten; nay, even certain fowls and geese, to those who observe, will evidence ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... elephant. His tusks never grew more than half-size. Bull elephants whose tusks do not grow to their full size are sometimes bad-tempered; they seem to have a grudge against everybody. Such elephants are always treated with special kindness, as if to make up ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... ignored my extended hand. I saw that she wished to impress upon me that she was a very grand lady indeed; but, while my ideas of what constitutes a lady were at that time somewhat befogged by my snobbishness, she failed dismally. She looked just what she was—a mean, bad-tempered woman, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... Certainly if a bad-tempered man can be admirably virtuous, he must be so under extreme difficulties. I doubt the possibility that a high order of character can coexist with a temper like Touchwood's. For it is of the nature of such temper to interrupt the formation of healthy ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... drawn by a commotion on the driveway. A big Tucker limousine with an O.D. paint job and the single-starred flag of a brigadier general was approaching, horning impatiently. In the back seat MacLeod could see a heavy-shouldered figure with the face of a bad-tempered great Dane—General Daniel Nayland, the military commander of Tonto Basin. The inside guards jumped to attention and saluted; the barrier shot up as though rocket-propelled, and the car slid through; the barrier slammed down behind it. On ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... admit that I am bad-tempered, surly, irritable—I make no difficulty about that. The charge is true enough. I can only ask you again: What are the circumstances that have ruined my temper? When you present yourself here with ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Saxton looked bad-tempered. Then Mrs. Corey bustled with her face and yearned at Milt, "Do tell me: what is the theme of the opera ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... bad family wished to reform, he had every opportunity to do so; if a member of a good family had vicious propensities, there was nothing to check them. All qualities, good and bad, are intensified and accentuated in the life of the wilderness. The man who in civilization is merely sullen and bad-tempered becomes a murderous, treacherous ruffian when transplanted to the wilds; while, on the other hand, his cheery, quiet neighbor develops into a hero, ready uncomplainingly to lay down his life for his friend. One who in an eastern city is merely a ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... one watches with admiration the part a donkey plays in the economy of those primitive lands. All the work is reserved for that industrious animal, and little play falls to his share. The camel is always bad-tempered, and when overladen lies down, refusing to move until relieved of its burden. The Turk is lazy and selfish, the native women pass their time in chattering and giggling, the children play and squabble, the ubiquitous dog sleeps in the sun; but from daybreak ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... make Freddie angrier than ever. He darted toward Frisky and tried to bite his neck. But Frisky was quick, too. He ran up a tree before Freddie Weasel could catch him, and smiled at the bad-tempered fellow. ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... natural," remarked the little school teacher, with a sigh. "Captain Wegg was always kind to me; but the neighbors as a rule thought him moody and bad-tempered." After a pause she added: "He was not as kind to his son as to me. But I think his life was an unhappy one, and we have no right to reprove his memory too severely ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... you needn't repulse me as if I were a snake. You are a child, after all, and a jolly bad-tempered one at that!" It was the first time he had ever used such a tone, and the girl's anger flared ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... he answered, chuckling as he poked about in a pile of noses and selected a large-sized one. "Yes! Yes! And recently I made a lovely blue pair for a bad-tempered child who'd ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... give it up without a trial," Vincent said shortly. "It is about the finest horse I ever saw; and if it hadn't been for its temper, it would be cheap at five times the sum you gave for it. I have ridden a good many bad-tempered horses for my friends during the last year, and the worst of them couldn't get ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Auguste Dumont, who kept the one small store at the Flats, lived in the one frame house that the place boasted, and was reputed to be worth an amount of money which, in half-breed eyes, was a colossal fortune. Old Auguste was black and ugly and notoriously bad-tempered. But Tannis ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... woman, "there's not many cares about a bad-tempered, bed-ridden woman, but you're one of them that's been kind. I don't say much, ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... struggle to escape from misery, the sea-trade attended with so much loss of life, the complicated interests of commerce, and finally the wars to which it all gives rise—is due, only and alone, to luxury, which gives no happiness even to those who enjoy it, nay, makes them ill and bad-tempered. Accordingly it looks as if the most effective way of alleviating human misery would be to diminish luxury, or even ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... The man who indulges in it habitually cannot do so with impunity. Doctors constantly warn their patients to refrain from irritating disputes, and to avoid men and things likely to provoke their anger. (b) It has a bad effect socially. The bad-tempered man is seldom a favorite with society. Men eventually dislike him and shun him as a nuisance. His family, if he has one, come to regard him with dread rather than love. (c) It has a bad effect as regards success in life. "Everything," the ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... yawns until my own eyes water (though, indeed, she has very pretty teeth), and, on the whole, is very dutiful and quarrels with me whenever I wish. 'T is quite true she cannot play chess; she also, constantly, revokes at Whist, and is quite as bad-tempered over it as I am. Cards, I fear, are altogether beyond her at present,—she is young. Of course time may change this, but I have grave doubts. In this deplorable situation I turn to you, dear Mr. Beverley (Cleone knew your address, it seems), and write these hasty lines to ntreat,—nay, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... surprised if she'll be able to use it again,' he said consolingly—'the mandolin, I mean. Besides, what's the good of it anyway? I say, Mother, are all foreigners bad-tempered?' ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... rode together in silence; but Quashy, who had overheard, the conversation, and was of a remarkably combative disposition, though the reverse of bad-tempered or quarrelsome, could not ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... annoyances outside, serious annoyances, and they have made me bad-tempered, so much so that I have been unpleasant and aggressive ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Pradel called to mind three physicians in succession; but they were unable to find the address of the first; the second was bad-tempered, and it was decided ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... part) turn out well, and have good colors, are good tempered and willing to work, and are of medium size. Those brought from China are small, very strong, good goers, treacherous, quarrelsome, and bad-tempered. Some horses of good colors are brought from Japon. They have well-shaped bodies, thick hair, large fetlocks, large legs and front hoofs, which makes them look like draft-horses. Their heads are rather large, and their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... whether I dare to meet him," says Atli, "he is bad-tempered, and may be that I shall let ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... to take care of us, and bring us along with him, as he was marching with the chief part of his army to the northward. I must say that our captors were not bad-tempered fellows, and we soon got into their good graces by talking and laughing, though they could not understand much more of what we said than we could of their language. They got us each a horse, which was much pleasanter than riding ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... angry at him to the end of time. And that same blundering and angry Maker was the God one had to love and honour. Naturally, being constituted as he is, Brenton, once he had cut his wisdom teeth, turned balky, refused to see why he should love a God who behaved like a bad-tempered child that spites the toy he has broken and beats the wall where he ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... leave for Edinburgh, Mrs. West walked up to me. "I've begged Mr. Somerled's pardon," she said, with her pretty smile which never changes, "and he has forgiven me, so you mustn't go on thinking me an ill-natured, bad-tempered person, please; I'm not really. Only we writing people have 'temperaments,' just as artists have—Mr. Somerled himself, for instance. My brother scolded me, and I deserved it. He is so interested in you and your talent for writing, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... other, and Don Pedro and the Grand Inquisitor stood laughing at the entrance. Even the Duchess—the Camerera-Mayor as she was called—a thin, hard-featured woman with a yellow ruff, did not look quite so bad-tempered as usual, and something like a chill smile flitted across her wrinkled face and twitched ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... for none, and nothing suited him. He imagined that the mistress was intentionally cooking poor meals and preparing everything he didn't like; that the master was tormenting him with needless work; that the horses were all bad-tempered and that the cows purposely did everything they could to bother him—the stupidest cows that ever grazed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Reuben do but go down to Zoar, where his wife come from, and git her half-sister—both of 'em young, scart little things, and no kin to one another—and they can't do nothin' even if they wanted to. Bad-tempered? Wal, no. I wouldn't say the Granger twins was bad-tempered;" and the biographer dexterously removed a fly from his horse's patient back. "They're sot, of course, but they ain't what they used to be—I guess it's been a sort of discipline to 'em—livin' ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging at ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... began, with MacFee at the head and a dozen troopers pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact payment ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... "Bad-tempered is a tame name for it. You should have seen the dust he raised the other day with old Benson. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... time a perfectly new idea flashed across the mink's mind, and it startled him. For the first time in his life he thought that perhaps he was a fool. Young otters seemed to be so much older than he had imagined them, so much more unreasonable and bad-tempered, and to have so many teeth. It was a question, he decided—while he was being mauled around among the water weeds—that would bear some thinking over. He wanted to think about it right away. There was no time like the ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... were, there's no material at hand. Bad-tempered young men are never amusing, to me. ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... corner, and after them came a very small girl with a very long stick. She looked about six years old, and she had great trouble to keep her little brown feet inside the wooden shoes, which were many sizes too large for her. How was it that those big, and perhaps bad-tempered, animals allowed themselves to be driven and beaten by that child, whereas they would have turned upon a dog double her size, and done their best to toss him over the chestnut trees? What is it that the brutes see below the surface ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker |
