"Flippant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his race, He saw their lineal glories rise, And touch'd, or seem'd to touch, the skies: Not the most distant mark of fear, No sign of axe or scaffold near, Not one cursed thought to cross his will Of such a place as Tower Hill. 680 Curse on this Muse, a flippant jade, A shrew, like every other maid Who turns the corner of nineteen, Devour'd with peevishness and spleen; Her tongue (for as, when bound for life, The husband suffers for the wife, So if in any works of rhyme Perchance ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... a creature so strenuous as the anti-aircraft gun come by the flippant name of Archie? Well, once upon a time the Boche A.-A. guns were very young and had all the impetuous inaccuracy incident to youth. British airmen scarcely knew they were fired at until they saw the pretty, white ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... the President? Not an armed rebel, clothed with belligerent rights; not a political refugee, who had skulked into our lines for rapine and for plunder; but the citizen of a free State, who could visit and send his cards to the Vice-President with a flippant familiarity, which his aristocratic slave-holding associates presume to use,—a man allowed to go about the streets of Washington, breathing treason and blaspheming God, without rebuke. He could command attention from proprietors of houses and saloons, from owners of blooded stock, from ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... ardent feelings of woman," says a female writer, "expose her to exaggeration of sentiment." Ignorant and weak women mortify their friends and disgust many others, in society. They talk for the sound's sake, giving flippant utterance to the commonplaces of the day. But did God endow this sex with speech, to be exercised only on folly and nonsense? No, we have seen too many living examples to the contrary, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... to appear flippant, for Mr. AINLEY played with exquisite feeling and a fine sincerity. And I have to thank Mr. VACHELL for giving us some excellent studies of character—not character developed before our eyes by circumstance (except perhaps a little at the last), but admirably observed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... wouldn't talk about death in that flippant manner," he gibed, wondering how under the sun he might get her out of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... looked at her sharply. "I should think, my dear young lady, that you, of all persons, would realize what a very serious thing life is to any one in this condition. Instead of that I fear at times that you are—shall I say—flippant?" He turned about and looked at the children. "How do you ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... defy the writers of the silver-fork school to write out of the style flippant. Read but one volume of ——, and you will be saturated with it; but if you wish to go to the fountain-head, do as have done most of the late fashionable novel writers, repair to their instructors—the lady's-maid, for flippancy ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... rose in her heart. Somehow, even though she told herself she had no interest in the matter, Molly wished that he were something more valuable than the flippant looker-on she took him to be. How could any man, who was worth anything, bear to be only that, ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... which the speaker made to appear flippant and at his ease showed her how deeply he was moved. His wife felt this without fully reasoning it out, and the consciousness that this self-controlled man was so stirred awoke in her a strange and powerful excitement. She turned a shade paler, as she looked silently down into her wine-glass. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... mark, to what 'tis given, and then declare, Mean though I am, if it be worth my care. Is it not given to Este's unmeaning dash, To Topham's fustian, Reynold's flippant trash, To Andrews' doggerel where three wits combine, To Morton's catchword, Greathead's idiot line, And Holcroft's Shug-lane cant and ...
— English Satires • Various
... married, but that of course she wished for his happiness above everything, and she meant to give him a wedding present worth having, if she beggared herself for years. The poor little woman showed a great deal of heart, and I was touched. I'm afraid she's not too happy, under her air of almost flippant gaiety and "smartness," for she rather hinted that she liked some man who didn't care for her—someone she met in the East. I suppose she can't be cherishing a hidden passion for you? Rather cruel of us, accusing her of being a flirt in those days, if she were in earnest ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... have yet to learn. My amiable friend might have perhaps somewhat exceeded the prescribed line of his duty in letting me have the key of the Library in question—but, can a declaration of such confidence not having been MISPLACED, justify the flippant remarks ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... flow in Paris than that the wine should flow any longer in London. And if I say that even now the guillotine might be the best cure for many a London lawyer, I ask you to believe that I am not merely flippant. But you will ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... nationality was, I should say that you were English," remarked Sir Robert, feeling that he was making what they must see was a handsome concession. But he was not talking to a Sam Bates now. Mr. Edmund Aglonby regarded him with a reserved air, as if he had said something rather flippant. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... ill-judging wit, 10 If matches are not better made, At once I must forswear my trade. You send me such ill-coupled folks, That 'tis a shame to sell them yokes. They squabble for a pin, a feather, And wonder how they came together. The husband's sullen, dogged, shy; The wife grows flippant in reply: He loves command and due restriction, And she as well likes contradiction: 20 She never slavishly submits; She'll have her will, or have her fits. He this way tugs, she t'other draws: The man grows jealous, and with cause. Nothing can ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... which was excited. At the British Association Meeting at Oxford in 1860, after an American professor had indignantly asked the question, 'Are we a fortuitous concourse of atoms?' as a comment on Darwin's views, Dr Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, ended a clever but flippant attack on the Origin by enquiring of Huxley, who was present as Darwin's champion, if it 'was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at which was a witty, French, flippant sort of man, author of a History of Philosophy,[A] and now writing a Life of Goethe, a task for which he must be as unfit as irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. But he told stories admirably, and was allowed sometimes ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... this grubby painter—it was maddening! She thought of him as "grubby," whatever that meant, because she did not like him, but it was even more maddening for her to think of Olga Tcherny's portrait, which, in spite of her flippant remarks, she had been forced to admit revealed a knowledge of feminine psychology that had ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... man in the tavern offers a key to the solution of the problem of Yates' success on the New York press. He could get news when no other man could. Flippant and shallow as he undoubtedly was, he somehow got into the inner confidences of all sorts of men in a way that made them give him an inkling of anything that was going on for the mere love of him; and thus Yates often received valuable assistance from ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... merit on her side that ever was in one human creature towards another."(10) Pope alludes in a letter to Sheridan to the illness of Swift's "particular friend," but with the exception of another reference by Pope, and of a curiously flippant remark by Bolingbroke, the subject is nowhere mentioned in Swift's correspondence with his literary ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... "Don't be flippant, Turkey. Listen to me. I've told you very often that no boys in the school have a greater influence for good or evil than you have. You know I don't talk about ethics and moral codes, because I don't believe that the young of the human animal realizes what they mean for some years to come. ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Belward, I've seen It all, of course; I know It backwards, and I'm not squeamish, but that sounds—flippant-that, with her." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... flippant, and say that there were probably several dotted about the globe, if we only knew them; but I dared not, under those eyes—absolutely dared not. Instead, I remarked inanely that I was sorry to hear his father ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... an amusing child," she returned carelessly, "but she makes a very common mistake. She thinks a pretty face and a flippant tongue and a childish manner are perfectly irresistible, but in her study of mankind she is certainly an ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... less of flippant overbearing impudence now, about Lord Kilcullen, much less of arrogance and insult from the son towards the father, than there had been in the previous interview which has been recorded. He seemed to be somewhat in dread, to be cowed, and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... convincing, persuasive, zealous, enthusiastic, and inspiring. Avoid that which is timid, familiar, violent, cold, indifferent, unreal, artificial, dull, sing-song, hesitating, feeble, unconvincing, apathetic, monotonous, pompous, formal, arbitrary, flippant, ostentatious, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... Examiner and your letter. You are very good not to be angry with me, for I wrote in indignation and grief. The critic of the Daily News struck me as to the last degree incompetent, ignorant, and flippant. A thrill of mutiny went all through me when I read his small effusion. To be judged by such a one revolted me. I ought, however, to have controlled myself, and I did not. I am willing to be judged by the Examiner—I ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... this and in other countries, from 1811 down to the present time. I have expressed my opinions at various times in Congress, and some of the predictions which I have made have not been altogether falsified by subsequent events. I must therefore be permitted, Gentlemen, without yielding to any flippant newspaper paragraph, or to the hasty ebullitions of debate in a public assembly, to say, that I believe the plan for an exchequer, as presented to Congress at its last session, is the best measure, the only measure for the adoption of Congress and the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... might have been a very successful novel. It was entirely devoid of incident or interest, and, consequently, was a good deal like real life, as real life appears to many cultivated authors. On the other hand, all the characters were flippant. This would never have done, and I do not regret novel No. I., which ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... much offended. Sarcasm from the young to the old pained him: flippant behaviour towards himself hurt him. Courteous in his simple way to all persons whom he met, he expected a like politeness from them. Hetty perfectly well knew what offence she was giving; could mark the displeasure reddening on her partner's honest face, with a sidelong glance ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... urgent incentives to the adoption of a virtuous career;—all, in themselves, both unexceptionable and praiseworthy, but, nevertheless, having a strange sound in the ears of those who recognized them as the utterances of one whose conversation was always flippant and puerile, and whose daily life, in the enormity and uninterrupted persistency of its profligacy, rendered him the acknowledged leader of all that was most disreputable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wonderful idea of yours, that my only life—as I've regarded it—is just about five minutes anyhow, of a day that goes on from strength to strength. You've somehow put an atmosphere into it, and a reality. I believe you believe it. Excuse me—I'm not being flippant; I'm only being deadly real. I may shoot myself tonight; tomorrow morning I may be dead, whatever that means. Anyhow, I haven't a desire to talk etiquettically about things like this. And I won't, whatever you may think of me. Your letter didn't convince me. It inspired ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... circumstances when exasperation at the flippant tone about him carried him beyond the ordinary bounds of that polite time. A guest at table asked contemptuously what was the use of a nation like the French having reason, if they did not use it. "They mock the other nations of the earth, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... not personally communicating the story which he had allowed to drift to the governor's ears by chance, was that he thought that what he had heard must have come to King's knowledge also: a supine and almost flippant explanation of neglect in a matter which was serious if the allegations were true. He affirmed also that one of the French officers had pointed out to him on a chart the very place where they intended to ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... on the Palace—cared for, kept Even as they were when our arch-monarch died— The books, the chair, the inkhorn, and the pen He quizzed with flippant curiosity; And entering where our hero's bones are urned He seized the sword and standards treasured there, And with a mixed effrontery and regard Declared they should be all dispatched to Paris As gifts to the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... good offices of the Doctor, and the strenuous exertions of the association to get itself into notice, it met with no very great success until I joined it. The truth is, the members indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers read every Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than buffoonery. They were all whipped syllabub. There was no investigation of first causes, first principles. There was no investigation of any thing at all. There was no attention paid to that great ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... spoken with such sweet ingenuousness that I was only charmed. The simple sincerity of the confession seemed to me much better than the flippant jest and pert talk with which I had heard such subjects treated while making my observations upon what my city-acquaintances had assured me was good society. Is it not Sterling who exclaims that a luxurious and polished ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... tent were all turned toward her, hushed and reverent. Before she had finished the verse the Rectangle was subdued and tamed. It lay like some wild beast at her feet, and she sang it into harmlessness. Ah! What were the flippant, perfumed, critical audiences in concert halls compared with this dirty, drunken, impure, besotted mass of humanity that trembled and wept and grew strangely, sadly thoughtful under the touch of this divine ministry of this beautiful young woman! Mr. Maxwell, as ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... we prosper. The thoughtless, light-hearted, somewhat shallow mind which thinks it can speak, think, and act without having to render an account needs the somewhat stern tonic of these seven dramas; it may be chastened into some sobriety and learn to be a little less flippant ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... order reigns completely; and chaos makes dim and confused the outer margin of the circle. In fact, life in every form bears a more or less strong resemblance to a philosophic school. There are always the devotees to knowledge who forget their own lives in their pursuit of it; there are always the flippant crowd who come and go—of such, Epictetus said that it was [as] easy to teach them philosophy as to eat custard with a fork. The same state exists in the super-astral life; and the adept has an even deeper and more profound seclusion there in which to dwell. This place of retreat is so safe, so ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... family seem to owe something," she replied with a flippant laugh. "I'm sure I didn't choose the family. If I had, I'd have picked ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... was to go on duty as orderly in Ward W—an officers' ward—at 2 p.m. prompt. I did not know where Ward W was; I did not know what a ward-orderly's functions should amount to. And I had no uniform. I was attired in a light grey lounge suit—appropriate enough to my normal habit, but quite too flippant, I was certain, for a ward-orderly. Whatever else a ward-orderly might be, I was sure that he was not the sort of person to sport ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... many more persons in the dissecting-room than usual. I had now become much more cheerful, and enjoyed the frank greetings of my many friends with a relish and an ardour that had hitherto been unknown to me. Many flippant remarks and careless observations were exchanged in relation to the business before us. We had become accustomed to such scenes, and habit had rendered us callous to the reflections and impressions generally produced when gazing ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... A very different type, this swaggering Celestial, from the furtive-eyed Chinamen of the east. His tightly coiled cue was as smooth and shining as a king-snake, his loose blouse was immaculate, and the flippant voice in which he demanded in each person's ear, "Coffee? Milk?" was like a challenge. Whatever the individual's choice might be, he got it in a torrent ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... snarled his opponent, the last atom of his patience exhausted by the speaker's flippant criticism. "You cur, you deserve a good thrashing, and I'm going to give ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... syllable. He should, first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... as he rounded a corner among the cabins, he came full upon her, and his flippant tongue clove to the roof of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... rapida. Fleet sxiparo. Flesh (meat) viando. Flesh karno. Flexibility fleksebleco. Flexible fleksebla. Flexion flekso. Flicker lumsxanceli. Flight forkuro. Flight (birds) flugado. Fling jxeti. Flint (mineral) siliko. Flippant babila. Flirt amindumeti, koketi. Flirt koketulino. Flirtation koketeco. Flit flirti. Float (intrans.) nagxi. Float (trans.) flosi. Flock (congregation) zorgitaro. Flock aro. Flog skurgxi. Flood superakvego. Floor ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... duty to look pretty if she can, and should she fail in that,—as brides usually do,—her failure is attributed to the natural emotions of the occasion. The part of the bridegroom is more difficult. He should be manly, pleasant, composed, never flippant, able to say a few words when called upon, and quietly triumphant. This is almost more than mortal can achieve, and bridegrooms generally manifest some shortcomings at the awful moment. Daniel Thwaite ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... after that was what I should say to him. I had an idea that I ought to congratulate him, but it seemed a brutal thing to do. I had not made up my mind when I heard him coming down. He was laughing and joking in what seemed to me a flippant kind of way, considering the circumstances. When his hand touched the door I snatched at my book and read as hard as I could. He was swaggering a little as he entered, but the swagger went out of him as soon as his eye fell on me. I fancy he had come down to tell ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... would not have mentioned it. I'm not that sort of girl, and I'm not the sort that gets cold in the head, either, thanking you all the same for kind enquiries. But I'm by no means faultless. I get what the novelists call flippant when I am feeling most solemn. I was a bit down-hearted when I wrote last, for your letter had said 'Dardanelles.' Now you say 'Flanders,' which is no better, but I am not going to cry this time. Surely they won't send ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... the best advertised faces in New York about two years ago," she said, and he detected a plaintive note in the flippant remark. "Not so well-known nowadays, thank God. See here, Dr. Thorpe, I hope you won't think it out of place for me to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... the most grave occasions. Sometimes he sinned against good taste, and I once heard his sister Catherine say that "Henry rarely delivered a speech or a sermon which did not contain something that grated on her ear." His most frequent offenses were in the direction of flippant handling of sacred themes and Scripture language. This he inherited from ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... or think I have, and for them a respect withheld from any woman of the rostrum who points to their misfortune and calls it emancipation—to their need and calls it a spirit of independence. It is not from these good girls that you will hear the flippant boast of an unfettered life, with "freedom to develop;" nor is it they who will be foremost and furious in denial and resentment of my statements regarding the morals of their class. They do not know ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... amused and perplexed at Clifford's absolutely frank confidence. There was nothing flippant about it either. It was the simple expression of a nature that had nothing to conceal. There was not even a hint of gossip about it, nor of ill nature. In a land where there were no newspapers, telegraphs, ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... had a single act escaped observation. In vain had she looked, in his declarations of sentiments, for high moral purposes—for something elevated and manly in tone. In their place she found only exceeding worldliness, or the flippant commonplace. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... was full to the brim of a flippant, girlish humor that appealed to him monstrously. He felt that it was a man's place to think seriously, if serious thought were needed. And he intended when he married to do the thinking. His wife ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... mere civility of asking him to tea," pursued poor Georgy, heedless of this flippant interruption, "I'm sure I should be the last to make any objection. Indeed, I am under a kind of obligation to Mr. Hawkehurst, for his polite attention has enabled us to go to the theatres very often when your papa would not have thought of buying tickets. But ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... might smile when they heard this accomplished traitor professing friendship towards themselves, and zeal for their service; they might be disgusted at the flippant sophistries by which he strove to defend his unexampled villainy. But far different feelings must have been awakened, when he went on to unfold the gigantic scheme of conquest, to which, as he pretended, the invasion of Sicily was ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... be mortified when they see their children, perhaps, deficient at nine or ten years old in the showy talents for general conversation; they must bear to see their pupils appear slow; they must bear the contrast of flippant gayety and sober simplicity; they must pursue exactly an opposite course to that which has been recommended for the education of wits; they must never praise their pupils for hazarding observations; they must cautiously point out any mistakes that are made ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... Helena, Montana, and thence back to Medora. Once more the interviewer sought his views on political questions. Roosevelt made a few non-committal statements, refusing to prophesy. "My political life," he remarked, "has not altogether killed my desire to tell the truth." And with that happily flippant declaration he was off into ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... be cultivated, and needs to be cultivated in our times. There is too much mere "smartness" abroad. In society and in the world we find a flippant, cynical tone; no doubt much of this is reaction from old-time gloom and severity. But without a reasonable reverence we cannot have good manners, or loyal citizens, or possessors of ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... better after I have asked her," was Elfreda's flippant retort. "I have an idea that she will feel dreadfully hurt if no one asks her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... in a caviling spirit: but that which simply and clearly seemed to present itself in regard to a book which had possessed me (for better for worse) in no common degree—by one on whom (I think is known) I set no common store.—If I have seemed to yourselves hasty or superficial or flippant—all I can say is, such was not my meaning.—Surely the best things can bear the closest looking at,—whether as regards ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... courageous devotion has given me a true sympathy for him, and I shall hope that you will use the influence of early friendship to turn his mind from the deplorable path he seems about to enter. I make no judgment on the other peculiarities attributed to him by Monsieur Bixiou, who has a cutting and a flippant tongue; I am more inclined to think, with Joseph Bridau, that such mistakes are venial. But a fault to be forever regretted, according to my ideas, will be that of abandoning his present career to fling himself into the maelstrom of politics. You ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Boston, Mrs. Graham?" the young lady inquired in her usual flippant manner. "I think I shall go there next week, to pay a short visit to a friend of mine; I wish I could ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... two high-backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh bustling landlady, but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant word and have a rallying laugh with the group round the fire. The scene completely realized Poor Robin's humble idea ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... indeed is hardly more allowable in serious verse than Dickens's mention of the lady who went home "in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair." But Crabbe's indulgence in this habit is never a mere concession to the reader's flippant taste. His epigrams often strike deeply home, as in this instance ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... flippant clatter of castanets in the pause of some solemn funeral music was the impression given by the first glimpse along the winding woodland way of a great flimsy white building, with its many pillars, ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... perfectly apt retort, and not at all flippant as it may seem at first. It is based on the belief suggested by common sense and confirmed by Scripture that our life there will be the natural continuous development of our life here and not some utterly ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... even a brief career of sensual gratification was impossible, or so counterbalanced with suffering as to be revolting. Though scarcely more than across the threshold of life, existence had become an unmitigated evil. Had he been brought up in an atmosphere of flippant scepticism he would have flung it away as he would a handful of nettles; but his childish memory had been made familiar with that ancient Book whose truths, like anchors, enable many a soul on the verge of wreck to outride the storm. He was too well ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of titles, Mr. Jarvis?" asked the girl, one evening. "When you made your recessional into the Middle Ages by taking the feudal oath to me, you were flippant, almost sarcastic: yet by my standards, I could not feel that any man could defend my interests with propriety unless he were of my own people—so, you were adopted with more ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... man, the most extraordinary I ever saw, but there is more of the mountebank than of greatness in all this. It may do well enough for Sefton, who is as ignorant as he is sharp and shrewd, and captivated with his congenial offhandism, but it requires something more than Brougham's flippant ipse dixit to convince me that the office of Chancellor is such a sinecure and bagatelle. He had a levee the other night, which was brilliantly attended—the Archbishops, Duke of Wellington, Lord Grey, a host of people. Sefton goes and sits in his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... men whom Pascal evidently met at the hotel of the Duc de Roannez, and with whom he formed something of a friendship, was the well-known Chevalier de Méré, whom we know best as a tutor of Madame de Maintenon, and whose graceful but flippant letters still survive as a picture of the time. He was a gambler and libertine, yet with some tincture of science and professed interest in its progress. In his correspondence there is a letter to Pascal, in which he makes free in a somewhat ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... wrote a note to Betty Winter. He read it over and it seemed foolishly cold and formal. He tore it up and wrote a simpler one. It was flippant and a little presumptuous. He destroyed that and decided ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... But Buckingham was flippant and careless; Richelieu careful when there was need, and daring when there was need. Buckingham's heavy blows were foiled by Richelieu's keen thrusts, and then, in his confusion, Buckingham blundered so foolishly and Richelieu profited by his blunders so shrewdly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... contempt nor courtesy. If no smile welcomed their remarks, at least her silence was not scornful, and the most shallow-headed prater that fluttered around her felt that he was received with dignity and not with disdain. Awed by her conduct, not one of them dared to be flippant, and every one of them soon became dull. The ornaments of the Court of Reisenburg, the arbiters of ton and the lords of taste, stared with astonishment at each other when they found, to their mutual surprise, that at ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... considerably grieved at his roommate's flippant attitude toward his career of vice. Secretly, he felt that a word of kindly remonstrance, some friendly effort to pull him back from the frightful abyss into which he was sinking, would have been more like a friend ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Globe.—"But the mood in which we turn the Japanese pages of the last Lark is anything but flippant. It is something to have known youth and gayety, enthusiasm and a bravery which flies in the face of day, and now—something to have lost them. The Lark has lived and now dies well, and, to some at least, the time of its irregular ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess
... the sentiment of a statue. When applied to plastic art, colour is potent enough to change the essential purpose of the sculptor. The chief reason why the terra-cotta bust of St. John at Berlin looks flippant and fastidious is, that the painter was indiscreet in drawing the eyebrows and lips: owing to his carelessness, they do not coincide with the features indicated by the modeller, and the entire character of the boy is consequently changed. The question of polychromacy in Donatello's ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... side of Alfieri's terse philosophy and pregnant remarks on the development of character. What suits the page of Plautus would look poor in 'Oedipus' or 'Agamemnon.' Goldoni's memoirs are diffuse and flippant in their light French dress. They seem written to please. Alfieri's Italian style marches with dignity and Latin terseness. He rarely condescends to smile. He writes to instruct the world and to satisfy himself. Grim humour sometimes flashes out, as when he tells the story of the Order of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... that the historical facts are alluded to in English, unless by Dr. Moore in his View of Italy[368]. His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests about old men and young wives, and wondering at so great an effect from so slight a cause. How so acute and severe an observer of mankind as the author of Zeluco could wonder ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... subjection his speech, his arm, and his appetites. Wealth and pleasures repugnant to law, let him shun; and even lawful acts which may cause pain, or be offensive to mankind. Let him not have nimble hands, restless feet, or voluble eyes; let him not be flippant in his speech, nor intelligent in doing mischief. Let him walk in the path of good men" (Manu, p. 7). "He who neglecteth the duties of this life is unfit for this, much less for any higher world" ("Bhagavat Gita," ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... sort of blinding rush. She was convinced of his lack of honor more by his tone, his inflections, than by his words. His lack of deep regret, his readiness to leave her to bear the whole shock of thediscovery- these were in his flippant tones; and everytime she thought of them the hot blood surged over her. At such moments she hated him, and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the medical profession any deeper respect than for any other class of persons engaged in earning a livelihood, but now he remembered that the best physicians he had known had seemed to look upon their life-work as a consecration of themselves to humanity and the most flippant among them, as men, had always a dignity apart from themselves when they became the physician, and he knew, too, that as a class they were jealous of the good name of their profession and sensitive to a degree where anything affected its ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... solemnity and grandeur, filling the mind with exalted contemplations, and the imagination with inspiring and ennobling apparitions. Surroundings that contribute a quality of awfulness embrace in such scenes the soul of the traveller, and hold him in their tremendous thrall. Mean or flippant ideas may not enter here; but the man puts off the smaller part of him, as the Asiatic puts off his sandals on entering the porches of his god. Of such is the Eternal Sphinx, as Eothen Kinglake beheld her. We cannot feel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... flippant treatment of serious subjects gives many readers a false and distorted view of life. Humor does not depend on ridicule or satire. The fads and foibles of humanity can be good-naturedly exposed in humorous articles that have no sting. Although many topics may very properly ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... class is seen at a period a little earlier than the Christian era in Lucretius, living mournfully in the moral desert which his doubts had scorched into barrenness.(127) The world is to him a scene unguided by a Providence: death is uncheered by the hope of a future life. An example of the flippant sceptic is found in Lucian in the second century, A.D. The great knowledge of life which travel had afforded him created a universal ridicule for religion; but his unbelief evinced no seriousness, no sadness. His humour itself is a type ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... personal," but further than that his light did not penetrate. He went to a little Club, of which he was a temporary member; it was not fashionable, and did not seem to want to be, and SWEZEY thought it flippant. There he asked, "What are the Souls, anyhow?" "Societas omnium animarum," somebody answered, and SWEZEY exclaimed "Say!" "They are a congregation of ladies. Their statutes decree that they are to be bene natae, bene vestitae, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... very indifferent-looking young women—one, a thin little crooked creature, with sharp contracted features, which put him in mind of the head of a skinned rabbit—another with an immense flat unmeaning face; and the third, though better-looking than her two companions, was a silly little flippant miss in her teens, rejoicing in a crop of luxuriant curls which swept over her shoulders as she returned Frank's polite bow—when the squire introduced him to the assembled company—as much as to say, "I'm not ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... its plating and brown leather, and in use it is as willing and quiet as any tricycle could be, a most urbane and gentlemanly affair—if you will pardon the adjective. I am glad these things have not come too late for me. Frankly, the bicycle is altogether too flippant for a man of my age, and the tricycle hitherto, with its two larger wheels behind and a smaller one in front, has been so indecently suggestive of a perambulator that really, George, I could not bring myself to it. But a Bishop might ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... the Governor.—I too have my doubts. Is the flippant nonsense which Philip has written inspired by the effervescent good spirits of a happy young man? Or is it assumed for a purpose? In this latter case, I should gladly conclude that he was regarding his conduct to Eunice with becoming emotions of ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... adding mysterious little marks here and there in the wide margins, Frances reading as expressively as though she were doing her best to entertain Beatrice Egerton, who curled herself up on the window-seat, listened, made flippant comments, perused her exchanges when the "Argus" articles did not interest her, and when appealed to by Dorothy, acted as substitute for the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... now would not allow himself to be ruffled by Sir Percy's apparent indifference. Keen reader of emotions as he was, he had not failed to note a distinct change in the drawly voice, a sound of something hard and trenchant in the flippant laugh, ever since Marguerite's name was first mentioned. Blakeney's attitude was apparently as careless, as audacious as before, but Chauvelin's keen eyes had not missed the almost imperceptible tightening of ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... half dozen young men round her, who are all laughing at some joke. Presently she herself is laughing louder than any of them (being partial to boys and their "fun," as she calls it). Bestowing now a smart blow with her fan upon the youngest and probably therefore most flippant of her attendants, she stalks away from them across the lawn, to where two ladies are ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... and shivered slightly. Then she sat down in the chair which Weldon had just left vacant. "It is bad manners to have nerves, Captain Frazer. Forgive me first, and then tell me something altogether flippant, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... was doing, why—hunting; and had been, for some days, in all the inns of Homburg. She had the visitors' book, and was going through the names of the whole year, and studying each to see whether it looked real or assumed. Interspersed were flippant comments, and verses adapted to draw a smile of amusement or contempt; but this hunter passed them all over as nullities: the steady pose of her head, the glint of her deep eye, and the set of her fine lips showed a soul not to be ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... itself. There came to me across the years Maud's announcement of their ejection from the Beacon, and dimly, confusedly the same explanation was in the air. This time however I had been on my guard; I had had my suspicion. "He has made it too flippant?" I found breath after ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... you get over the hookin'-cough, I s'pose." Once more Billy Louise, for the good of her patient, forced herself into safe flippancy—that was not flippant at all, ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Clever flippant writers may do a trifling service here and there by ridiculing the pompous and deflating the prigs, but there is no permanence in such work, unless—which is seldom the case—it is ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... "Perhaps I appear flippant to him. But I am grave, too, grave as he, and I long to go, and the car and I, we are trustworthy. I do, indeed, know the way ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... his meals with Paulus and had built a small kitchen apart for himself, under one of the big willows. On this occasion Hansie did not feel pleased at "Jim's" appearance either, for it was one thing to teach the self-contained and reverent Sesuto, and quite another to instruct the flippant "Gentleman Jim." ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... he revealed the agitation that his flippant words had tried to cloak—by a scarcely perceptible tremour of the hand that drummed the table, a harder note in his voice, and the biting of his moustache. He saw that Doom guessed his perturbation, and he compelled himself to a careless laugh, got lazily to his feet, twisted his moustache ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... all of these the portrait is the same, and is so clear that even Peter's character is scarcely better known than that of Thomas. He always looks at the dark side. We think of him as the doubter; but his doubt is not of the flippant kind which reveals lack of reverence, ofttimes ignorance and lack of earnest thought; it is rather a constitutional tendency to question, and to wait for proof which would satisfy the senses, than a disposition to deny the facts of Christianity. Thomas was ready to believe, glad to ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... to say, or any breath to say it, there were no indications of it. Never in her flippant existence had she been so absolutely flattened by any woman. As for this recent graduate from fudge and olives, she could scarcely realise how utterly and finally she had been silenced by her. Incredulity, exasperation, amazement had succeeded each other while Miss ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... commented on the questions and counter-questions the next day introduced the name of Mr. Herbert Courtland and his explorations; though, of course, most attention was directed to what Mr. Ayrton's party called the brilliant, and the other party the flippant, methods of Mr. Ayrton. His reference to the New Guinea pig some thought a trifle too personal to be in good taste, but if politicians refrained from personalities and were punctilious in matters of taste, what chance would they ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... "Take it upstairs again." The perfectly trained servant, marveling privately, obeyed once more. Horace, in silent astonishment, advanced to the sofa to observe her more nearly. "How grave you look!" she exclaimed, with an air of flippant unconcern. "You don't approve of my sitting idle, perhaps? Anything to please you! I haven't got to go up and downstairs. Ring the ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... that her admission to the side show—the bright silver dime—was given her by Lafe, and that before he had any hope of himself seeing the circus. So she began to feel sorry for her flippant attitude and said in a ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... in common with these flippant people—scum themselves, forever on the surface, incapable even of seeing beneath, their every idea and motive a falsification of something divine in life or thought? They did not even speak the same language. To their ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Zaluski, who was so foolishly, thoughtlessly happy! He little dreamed of the fate that awaited him! His whole world was bright and full of promise; each hour of love seemed to improve him, to deepen his whole character, to tone down his rather flippant manner, to awaken for him new and ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... with a look of disgust. When they came upon the wharf Guerin laughed, and tried to get out a flippant apology for his tardiness; but Menard seized him before the words were off his lips, and dragging him across the wharf threw him into the water. Then he turned to Perrot, and ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the two imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Silly, silly child!" he went on, shaking his forefinger at her. "I tell you women have done their greatest work in the world when their brains have been covered with a pretty hat. . . . There she goes, he growled," as she left the room. "Thinks I'm a flippant old windbag, I know. And I'm not. Why don't you fall in love with her, Maraton? It would be the making of you. Even a prophet needs relaxation. She is yours, body and soul. One can tell it with every sentence she speaks. And she is for the cause," ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her foreman for Annie Malasek to come to my office right now?" I asked. Sara is flippant when things are going along all right, but she knows when to buckle down and do what she's asked. She gave me no personal ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... particularly to conceive of himself as an apostle of liberty, an outpost of the revolutionary army, and none so well as he could tip the barb with biting sarcasm and satire. Heine's personality was full of seemingly inconsistent traits. He was both fanciful and rational, serious and flippant, tender and cynical, reverent and impious; and he could be at once a patriot and an alien. He was, to use his own phrase, an "unfrocked romanticist"—at once a brilliant representative of the poetry of self-expression and personal ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... literature. Pure literary enthusiasm sheds but few rays. To be lively is to be flippant, and ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... due time, when able to fly, it was brought to the dove-cote. I watched it a great deal, and it was evident that this foster-young, though' with the pigeons, was not nor ever would be of them, for it could not take kiudly to their flippant flirty ways. Whenever a male approached it, and with guttural noises and strange gestures made a pompous declaration of amorous feelings, the dove would strike vigorously at its undesirable lover, and drive him off, big as he was; and, as a rule, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... nation, even when in captivity, the preservation of every servant of God who turns to the Lord in his chastisement, the exhibition of penitence as the way of deliverance, are the purposes for which the miracle was wrought and told. Flippant sarcasms are cheap. A devout insight yields a worthy meaning. Jesus Christ employed this incident as a symbol of His Death and Resurrection. That use of it seems hard to reconcile with any view but that the story is true. But it does not seem necessary to suppose that our Lord regarded ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... took stock of his surroundings. The two or three buildings Mr. Hicks had erected stood midway of the clearing and were very modest improvements adapted to their owner's somewhat flippant pursuit of agriculture. While Carrington was still staring about him, the cabin door swung open and a woman stepped forth. It was the girl Bess. She went to a corner of the building ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... the smoking room on the Caramania, he learned from the gossip there of Lady Diana's vow that she would never rest until Lord Marque had eaten her plum cake with its frosted inscription—this inscription consisting of the flippant words of his own rash speech delivered in the upper ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... too much imitation of Montesquieu. This abstract, piquant, sententious style, too, is a little dry, over-refined and monotonous. It has too much cleverness and not enough imagination. It makes one think, more than it charms, and though really serious, it seems flippant. His method of splitting up a thought, of illuminating a subject by successive facets, has serious inconveniences. We see the details too clearly, to the detriment of the whole. A multitude of sparks gives but a poor ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... flippant youth!" said the chaplain, stopping abruptly, and speaking in an accent of displeasure. "But I pity thy delusion," he added, after a brief pause, "and bid thee remember, that if thou hast access to the word, and turnest from it, thou can'st not make the plea of ignorance, in extenuation ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... studious and quiet, people say He is grouchy, he is old before his time; If he's frivolous and flippant, if he treads the primrose way, Then they mark him for a wild career ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... While in Italy the new impulses were chiefly turned into secular and often corrupt channels, in the Teutonic lands they deeply stirred the Teutonic conscience. In 1517 Martin Luther, protesting against the unprincipled and flippant practices that were disgracing religion, began the breach between Catholicism, with its insistence on the supremacy of the Church, and Protestantism, asserting the independence of the individual judgment. In England Luther's action revived the spirit of Lollardism, which had nearly been crushed ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... than serious and solemn, because he approaches Beardsley as he would John Bunyan or Aquinas. Art, literature and life, are all to this engaging writer a scholiast's pilgrim's progress. Beside him, Walter Pater, from whom he derives, seems almost flippant—and to have dallied too long in the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... that when they came upon him cantering gayly up through Buffalo Gap, he hardly knew them, so gaunt, worn, and ragged were they; they hardly knew him, so radiant was the halo of hope and love around his once devil-may-care face; so earnest, so grave, yet so joyous had become his once flippant, reckless mien. Yet, in their very greeting, Ray well knew that deep and faithful as had been the old trust, there was new born from the harsh ordeal of this strange, sad summer a friendship firmer, deeper, than ever earthly menace could shake—a trust and loyalty that was registered ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... and it was dreadful. For the fiftieth time he had waited supper for you two in vain, and in the twilight, when he had done work, his grief overcame him, and to see him weep is quite heartbreaking! The Syrian dealer came in and found him all tearful, and being so bold as to jest about it in his flippant way—" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... risks of the tongue are specially present in a bachelor's life in lodgings. But they are not absent there. Friends come in, and we will suppose that you and they are waited upon at your meal. What does the servant hear? Much talk about other and absent persons? Unkind or flippant criticisms? Idle, frivolous words? Very likely not, thank God; for we do want to remember our Lord. But let us take heed. Nothing is more conspicuously inconsistent in the Christian than needless, unloving discussion of the ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... and venerable Thompson standing behind my equally white-haired but much less venerable father at dinner, exuding an atmosphere of worth and uprightness and checking by his mere silent presence the more flippant tendencies of our conversation; when I hear him whisper into my youthful son's ear, "Sherry, Sir?" in the voice of a tolerant teetotaler who would not force his principles upon any man but hopes sincerely that this one will say No; and when I am informed that he promised our bootboy a rapid ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... in winter, it's warm in summer," retorted he, flippantly; and Addie giggled approvingly, for the reason that it sounded flippant and smart. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... a time successful, and her army earned a slight reputation for cruelty also; but Edward, son of the late Duke of York, embittered somewhat by the flippant death of his father, was soon victorious over the Lancastrians, and, in 1461, was crowned King of England at a good salary, with the use of a large palace and a good well ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... flippancy. He did not intend that anybody should. He intended to be terrible; and he knew that the more flippant and casual his tone, the more terrible would be its effect. He produced exactly the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... sins; things at which Auntie would turn pale with horror were a quietly accepted part of every-day life. No story was too bad for the women to tell over their tea-cups, or in their boudoirs, but if any little ordinary physical misery were alluded to, except in the most flippant way, such as the rash on a child's stomach, or the preceding discomforts of maternity, there was a pained and disgusted silence, and an open snub, if possible, for the woman so crude as to ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Craven?' inquires the minister. The contrast that rose before my mind was vivid enough, for having received my invitation to a big dance, I knew my sweet sisters would be having a jolly wild time about that moment. My answer, given I feel in a somewhat flippant tone, appears to shock my shinny captain of the angelic face, who casts a honor-stricken glance at his mother, and waits for the word of reproof that he thinks is due ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... loved her father: I will interpose in this matter, and hasten the wedding. Kate Willow is a witty mischievous wench in the neighbourhood, who was a beauty, and makes me hope I shall see the perverse widow in her condition. She was so flippant with her answers to all the honest fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that she has valued herself upon her charms till they are ceased. She therefore now makes it her business to prevent ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... however, be assured, gentlemen never laugh at or ridicule one another, unless they are in joke, or on a footing of the greatest intimacy. If such a thing should happen once in an age, from some pert coxcomb, or some flippant woman, it is better not to seem to know it, than to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... won't treat a school meeting like a theatre," said May, laughing. "Will it be considered unduly flippant on my part to go in this muslin? or ought I to wear black, as at ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... Vivian Grey, raced neck and neck at the head of the vast horde of "fashionable" novel-writers; now all but them forgotten. In Bulwer-Lytton's romances the reader moved among exalted personages, alternately flippant and sinister; a "mournful enthusiasm" was claimed for the writer by the readers of his day. It was the latest and most powerful development of that Byronic spirit which had been so shortlived in verse, but which was ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the national mind beginning to effervesce on art subjects. The most opposite views, the new and the old, the conventional and the truly imaginative, the severely real and the more latitudinarian, the earnest and the flippant, the pedantic and the broad, far reaching—will continue to clash for a season, while a school of American Landscape is, we think, destined to rise steadily through the chaotic elements, and to reach a height of excellence to which the conscientious efforts of all advocates of the highest Truth ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... mouth made him look all the leaner. He had a long ironical face, blue-black hair, the blue eyes of an Irishman, and the blue chin of an actor. An Irishman he was, an actor he was not, except in the old days of Miss Hunt's charades, being, as a matter of fact, an obscure and flippant journalist named Michael Moon. He had once been hazily supposed to be reading for the Bar; but (as Warner would say with his rather elephantine wit) it was mostly at another kind of bar that his friends found him. Moon, however, did not drink, nor even ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Winter hideous in a garb like this? Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng To thaw him into feeling, or the smart And snappish dialogue that flippant wits Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile? The self-complacent actor, when he views (Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house) The slope of faces from the floor to the roof, As if one master-spring controlled them all, Relaxed into an universal grin, Sees not a countenance there that ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... read by many fellow-creatures four thousand miles off. But then I knew I was not a great genius: and so I felt it at once a great pleasure and a great surprise. My heart smote me when I thought of some flippant words of depreciation which these essays have contained concerning our American brothers. They are the last this hand shall ever write: and I never will forget how simple thoughts, only sincere and not unconsidered, found their ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... its illustrations, it may be regarded as decidedly the most masterly and satisfactory production that has yet appeared in ethnology. The prospect of its republication affords us the more satisfaction, because the superficial and flippant infidelity of Dr. Robert Knox has been reproduced here by a respectable publishing house, and widely diffused. The "Races of Man," by Dr. Knox, is what is called a clever book; the Yankees might style it "smart;" but it is no more entitled to consideration as an exhibition of scholarship, intellectual ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... "Don't be flippant, Wally. This is a serious business and must be treated as such. In addition to the respiratory service, we can put in water-cooling and refrigerating services, at low cost, also cold-pipes for cooling houses in summer. In fine, we can immeasurably add to the health and comfort of the better classes; ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... my dearest Matilda, to communicate the strange and frightful scenes which have just passed. Alas! how little we ought to jest with futurity! I closed my letter to you in high spirits, with some flippant remarks on your taste for the romantic and extraordinary in fictitious narrative. How little I expected to have had such events to record in the course of a few days! And to witness scenes of terror, or to contemplate them in description, is as different, my dearest Matilda, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was a message to him from Ida, what could it mean save an overture toward a reconciliation? And if that, why had she not used the same methods of the post instead of this uncertain and even flippant means of communication? A note in an empty bottle, cast into the sea! There was something light and frivolous about ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... the altar in plain grey! She has been given such quantities of pea-nuts"—(very odd things to give a girl! Oh, presents! um, um)—"Not settled yet where to go for their hangman"—(the officiating clergyman, I suppose—very flippant way of putting it, I must say! It's meant for honeymoon, though, I see, to be sure!) ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... the burly Bostonian is sketched as he sits in the office of his warehouse, surrounded by samples of the mineral paint that he is so pathetically proud of, striving to maintain a dignified indifference as he answers the rather flippant curiosity of the local press interviewer. Uncle Piper, on the other hand, is introduced, as all of Tasma's characters are, in sundry solid-looking pages of direct narrative. It is true that their ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... until the red stain became undistinguishable, and even Polly felt conscious that her allusion was too flippant for the cause. ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... have dared to speak so to her because she stood far above such words and above the feeling they were meant to express. I said no more, but from that day my position has been intolerable. I did not wish to demean myself by continuing our former flippant relations, and at the same time I felt that I had not yet reached the level of straight and simple relations with her. I asked myself despairingly, "What am I to do?" In foolish dreams I imagined her now as my mistress and now as my wife, ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... the individual to give way to vain regrets,—at least, not for long. Despite that absence of that superior intellect,— which flippant gossips of so-called a "Social Science" delight in denying to his race, themselves often less gifted than he,—Snowball was endowed with rare ingenuity,—especially in matters relating to the cuisine, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... made more flippant by his solemnity. "Surely I can laugh. For what else was my father Irish? Dad used to say that a sense of humor was like a shillaly—an iligent thing to have around handy, especially when ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... I afterward discovered, she had brought with her, in order to display to her daughter. Then she spoke of her teeth, newly filed and plugged, and grinned with frequent effort, that their improved condition might be made apparent. Her chatter was peculiarly that of a flippant and conceited girl-child of sixteen, whose head has been turned by premature bringing out, and the tuition of some vain, silly, wriggling mother. I could see, by my wife's looks, that there was a cause for all this, and waited, with considerable apprehension, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms |
