"Cold comfort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... offers of assistance they were purely perfunctory, as I could see, and there was never a man of them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, I don't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these cold comfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegar in me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness and ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... been negotiable. She recalled Tom Abbott's warning to keep them always in her safe deposit box and the key hidden. They might be traced if stolen, but State's Prison for the thief would be cold comfort if the bonds had been cashed and the ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... This was but cold comfort to the redoubtable sea-officer, who was by no means fond of hearing the anecdote of the lantern in a tub repeated or alluded to; and he was about making an angry answer, when the sight of the schooner ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... And the rest? Well, just accident ... or the sun ... or dysentery... or the bloody toil that goes by the name o' work in these parts—you know the list, doctor, better'n me. They say the waste o' life in a new country can't be helped; doesn't matter; has to be. But that's cold comfort to the wasted. No! I say to you, there ought to be an Act of Parliament to prevent young fellows squanderin' themselves, throwin' away their lives as I did mine. For when we're young, we're not sane. Youth's a fever ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... give as bequeath, and rather; for as to what a man leaves to his friends, he can only have the satisfaction of thinking that they will be the better for him after he is dead and gone, which is but cold comfort; but what he gives he has the warm comfort of seeing them enjoy whilst he is alive ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... the Assembly had just adjourned after a busy session. A law debarring that "turbulent people" the Quakers from further admittance into the colony, and providing cold comfort for those already within its doors, was passed with acclamation, as was another against Anabaptists, and a third concerning the hue and cry for absconding servants and slaves. The selling rates for wines and ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the Fox, "if you wish me well, do not stand pitying me, but lend me some succour as fast as you can; for pity is but cold comfort when one is up to the chin in water, and within a hair's ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... knowin'. Wall, cunnel, I'm sure you're tired and hungry,—you and your darter, is it?—and I've got a hot supper for you over to my house. I allays think there's nothin' like hevin' things hot,—cold comfort ain't no comfort, for me,—and I've got everythin' hot for you—hot and nice; and now, will you come over and eat it? You see, you kin't do nothin' here to-night. I don't see how ever you're to sleep, in this world; there ain't nothin' here but the floor and the boxes, and if you'll take beds ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... up the morning paper, sits on the table, and speaks aloud) Be the pipers that played the dead march for Moses, but I'm twice as big a fool as I thought I was. And knowledge of that sort is cold comfort for any man. What's this I see here? "Daring burglary in the town of Castlemorgan. During the early hours of the morning, the house of Michael Cassily was broken into, and five pound notes, a gentleman's watch and a pair of silver candlesticks were stolen. So far, no ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... lacking a proper measure of wisdom, of courage, and of faith, to enable him to conform to the proper ideal standard of human conduct. And even then he must recognize the fact that in his weakness he has done something to be ashamed of, and to demand repentance. Cold comfort that for ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... the gospodyni engaged a fifteen-year-old orphan, Magda, who preferred to go into service, although she had a cow, a bit of land, and half a cottage of her own. She said that her uncle beat her too much, and that her other relations only offered her the cold comfort that the more he applied the stick the better it ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... this man has bolted, and that the Russian officer's intentions toward me are anything but hospitable, he calls the missing man—or the officer, I don't know which—a pedar suktar (son of a burnt father), and suggests returning to the cold comfort of the bala-khana. My own feelings upon realizing that this wretched, unscrupulous Muscovite has craftily designed and executed this plan for no other purpose but to insult and humiliate one whom he took for granted to be an Englishman, in the eyes of the Persian travellers present, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... compare with music exists, and life seems wholly barren. Rather cold comfort it seems at first to assure a person who is helpless that character is the greatest thing in the world, but that is the final truth. The most limited and helpless life may glow with it and be richer than imagination can believe. It is never time to regret—and never time ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... until at last, in a burst of almost hysterical enthusiasm, he accepted the offer. In the warmth of his pleasure, he grasped his son's hand and publicly received him back into his affections. But at the moment, this was cold comfort for Leif's followers. They turned from their painting and hammering and polishing, to stare at their lord in amazed disapproval. The instant the two chiefs had gone up from the shore, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... is one ugly reflection," he says in a letter to Joseph Warren. "Brutus and Cassius were conquered and slain, Hampden died in the field, Sidney on the scaffold, Harrington in jail. This is cold comfort." (Morse's Adams, ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... With which cold comfort he sauntered away to join Miss Messiter and the foreman, who now appeared together at the door of the ranchhouse, prepared to make a tour of the ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... 30,000 men. The Cisalpine territories in mere enthusiasm had raised twenty-two cohorts for him. He reached the Pescara while the bridge was still standing. He surrounded Corfinium with the impregnable lines which had served him so well in Gaul, and the messenger sent to Capua came back with cold comfort. Pompey had simply ordered Domitius to retreat from a position which he ought not to have occupied, and to join him in Apulia. It was easy to say Retreat! No retreat was possible. Domitius and his companions proposed to steal away in the night. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... but cold comfort to Vance, as you may imagine; but he saw that the giantess meant kindly, and he still hoped to escape in some way, so he swallowed his sobs as best he could and proceeded to open his box. No sooner were the tiny people free than they began to ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... particular case of whose matter I know already something, or to hear at hazard whatever case happen to be down for hearing. I never tire of the aspect of a court, the ways of a court. Familiarity does but spice them. I love the cold comfort of the pale oak panelling, the scurrying-in-and-out of lawyers' clerks, the eagerness and ominousness of it all, the rustle of silk as a K.C. edges his way to his seat and twists his head round for a quick whispered parley with his junior, while his client, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... to hope on, for we should one day buy the house back, or the Lord would help us to build another, and a better, and a bigger and a handsomer house than the one we had had to sell. But all this was cold comfort to us. I heard the same sort of words when I broke my tin watch, accidentally, of course, into fragments. My mother smacked me, and my father wiped my eyes, and promised to buy me a better, and bigger and handsomer watch than the ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... face the fact that he was in such a position—entirely and utterly alone, except for the useless flotsam that came with him. He might have flung himself into a mad chase after the ship on his suit jets except that the thought of leaving his little island, cold comfort though it was, to plunge into those totally empty ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor |
