"Foolishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strange if children were quite incapable of doing what is so plainly required of them. It is true that they can be taught to reach the extreme of foolishness in the insignificance of the details that they mention. But it is also true that a fair amount of wise guidance will lead them to exercise good judgment in their selection. In other words, thoroughness as a relative and qualitative ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... any of his talk seriously. He calls it 'starvation foolishness,' and says that Oliver will get over it as soon as he has a nice little bank account. Perhaps he will—he is only twenty-two, you know—but just now his head is full of all kinds of new ideas he picked up somewhere abroad. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... think," he said, "you fellows have exhibited enough foolishness for one scene; it is about time for a change. I did not think you were capable of making such asses of yourselves. You were saying, Sheriff, before you entered into your extremely interesting conversation with ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... foolishness,' says Sam, as he scraped the mud out of his hair. 'Think of our goin' like that. We ought to have known better.' "'We knew better,' I says, 'but we had to ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... upon the person you meet," said Mr. Adams, "as upon the book you read; if you choose a foolish book or a bad book, you can expect nothing but vice or foolishness; if you choose a foolish companion, surely you cannot expect kindness or strength." The kind-hearted man repeated to her all he had before said. "I cannot," he added, "be guilty of injustice to my children; but I can merge all my own luxuries ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... laughed. "Oh, pleased to have you come along, as the hawk said to the chicken." She climbed up and sat down beside him and he dodged as if she had struck at him. "Now stop yo' foolishness an' drive on, Jasper. An' I'll jest bet anythin' that these steers run right off'n the bluff inter the creek. ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... depended upon this craft, and in a few brief minutes my own selfish love of adventure had wrecked their hopes and mine. And what effect it might have upon the future of the balance of the rescuing expedition I could not even guess. Their lives, too, might be sacrificed to my suicidal foolishness. That I was doomed seemed inevitable; but I can honestly say that the fate of my friends concerned me more ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... plan is to let me know that they are Turks; the others, to let me know that they are not Turks. "I have told both parties to go to Gehenna," says my Italian friend. "These people will worry you to death with their foolishness if you make the mistake ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... talk of God was both irreverent and ill-bred. Wordsworth was an old woman; St. Paul an evangelical churchman. They saw no feature of any truth, but, like all unthinkers, wrapped the words of it in their own foolishness, and then sneered at them. They were too much of ladies, however, to do it disagreeably; they only smiled at the foolish neighbour who believed things they were too sensible to believe. It must, however, be said for ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... for the glory of God and the love of our neighbors. This was a powerful argument; the Countess made the most of it. Then, either by one of those tacit understandings, those veiled complaisances in which whoever wears the clerical garb excels, or through fortunate stupidity, serviable foolishness, the old nun brought a formidable support to the conspiracy. They thought she was timid; she showed herself bold, talkative, violent. This one was not trouble by the hesitations of casuistry; her doctrine seemed to be an iron bar; her faith never hesitated; ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... to believe the latter explanation. In any case, what was the good of speaking? Unarmed and solitary amidst unknown dangers, our position was desperate, and as Marut's nerve was already giving out, to emphasize its horrors to him would be mere foolishness. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... day I am angry at myself in not having profited by her sojourn at Teplitz, seeking her companionship sooner. It is a frightful thing to make the acquaintance of such a sweet creature, and to lose her immediately; and nothing is more insupportable than thus to have to confess one's own foolishness.... Be happy, if suffering humanity can be. Give, on my part, to the countess a cordial but respectful pressure of the hand, and to Amalie a right ardent kiss—if nobody ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... this foolishness," she pleaded softly; "it is not worth it! See, I have given my word! If you had thought I would go ahead of you to M'tela, all that danger is past. A fresh start, you said it yourself. Do you think I ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... regard to a gun for which a man should be measured as for a coat, but with a rod it is different, and should be made to vary with the type of fishing practised. The difference in weight being only a few ounces exposes the foolishness of this theory. All that matters is the question of balance; if that is all right, the size ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... victory. The devotion, which inspired them, remains as an immortal example. And if the illusion, under which her senses laboured, helped her to this act of self-consecration, was not that illusion the unconscious outcome of her own heart? Her foolishness was wiser than wisdom, for it was that foolishness of martyrdom, without which men have never yet founded anything great or useful. Cities, empires, republics rest on sacrifice. It is not without reason therefore, not ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... tells him that Sleep and Death are not the same, as you, in your foolishness, believe, for there Bastin is wiser than you. Because for all his wisdom he remains ignorant of what happens to man when the Light of Life is blown out by the breath of Fate. That is why he fears to die and why he talks with Bastin the Preacher, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... have inherited the most perfect feminist ideal that as yet the world has known; an ideal of service within the home of which full life she is the high-priestess; an ideal turning to foolishness the false values of this industrial age. And this ideal of service, shared by all, gives to the most unlearned Jewish woman the priceless knowledge of an eternal truth: a truth that has to be learnt by each one ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... fact the more disturbed of the two, and knowing it let anger loose to chase away she knew not what, which was troubling her with emotion she could neither entirely control nor explain later as the result of what seemed to her mere foolishness. If he was himself disturbed by his storm of primitive passion, he did not show it ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... go on," she replied. "I was afraid, if I came out and told you what I suspected, that you'd think it was just another case of feminine dam-foolishness, and dismiss it as such. I knew it wasn't an accident; Lane didn't have accidents with guns. And if he'd wanted to kill himself, he'd have done it and left a note explaining why he had to. But I didn't have a single fact to give you. I thought that if you came here ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... a whole night on his knees begging his wife's forgiveness. But this forgiveness was not granted, as he refused to apologise to Lebyadkin; moreover, he was upbraided for the meanness of his ideas and his foolishness, the latter charge based on the fact that he knelt down in the interview with his wife. The captain soon disappeared and did not reappear in our town till quite lately, when he came with his sister, and with entirely different aims; but of him later. It was no wonder that the poor ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... sure it was only ignorance and foolishness on their part—onraisonable cratures all or most ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... at George's peril, and the story had to be interrupted and water sprinkled on her, and the men in their innocence were for not going on with their part, but she peremptorily insisted, and sneered at them for being so foolish as to take any notice of her foolishness—she would have every word. After all was he not there alive and well, sent back to her safe after so many perils, never, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Scripture on which to build, and yet when spoken, in perfect harmony with all Scripture. How absolutely impossible for any man to have conceived that the Lord's saints should be caught up to meet Him in the air. Were it not true its very boldness and apparent foolishness would be its refutation. And what would be the character of mind that could invent such a thought? What depths of wickedness! What cruelty! What callousness! The spring from which such a statement, if false, could rise must be corrupt indeed. But how ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... bravest had been forced to flee? "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord."(346) "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... Doyle. "He's always after that girl, and it's my belief he'll tell her anything that she'd ask him. There's some that's took that way. Foolishness I ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... creatures, she is not following her vocation, she is forsaking it; she is robbing herself of the rights to which she lays claim. "If we were different," she says, "the men would not like us." She is mistaken. Only a fool likes folly; to wish to attract such men only shows her own foolishness. If there were no frivolous men, women would soon make them, and women are more responsible for men's follies than men are for theirs. The woman who loves true manhood and seeks to find favour in its sight will adopt means adapted ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... his preparations for possible "accidents" in no happy mood. Fresh from the bedside of Ingolby, having had no sleep, and with many sick people on his list, he inwardly damned the foolishness of both towns. He even sharply rebuked the Mayor, who urged surgical preparations upon him, for not sending sooner to the Government for a force which could preserve order ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at my foolishness; I love to see you laugh, you who have laughed so little all these days. But I think the time of laughter has come for ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... arrangements for a winter's service or a summer's season. And to drive, that would be new—yes that would be a change indeed from the stuffy third-class compartments. For Auguste, you see, approved of us and of the foolishness of our plans. His sympathy being gratis, was allied to the protective instinct—he would see the cheating was at least as honestly done as was compatible with ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the merchant was gone Wali Dad made up his mind that there was only one honourable way out of the shame and distress that he had created by his foolishness, and that was—to kill himself. So, without stopping to ask any one's advice, he went off in the middle of the night to a place where the river wound along at the base of steep rocky cliffs of great height, ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... a great many more will go the same way. You just listen to me. I don't wear any uniform, but I've got eyes to see and ears to hear. I suppose that more monumental foolishness has been hidden under cocked hats and gold lace than under anything else, since the world began. Easy now, I don't say that fools are not more numerous outside armies than in them—there are more people outside—but the mistakes ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Reform Bill. But Mr. Gladstone received an invitation from Greenwich, in the southwestern division, where he was warmly received by the electors. "He spoke everywhere, with all his fiery eloquence, on the monstrous foolishness of a religious establishment which ministered only to a handful of the people." Is the Irish Church to be or not to be? was the question. He was returned for that borough by a large majority over his ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... "for goodness gracious sake don't talk such foolishness. It was a stupid, a wrong thing to do, after Mr Leigh had ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... "That is foolishness," said he. "I had a great care to be quite a stranger to her all the time I was in London. I myself scarcely knew—how could she know? Sometimes I thought I was rude to her, so that I should deceive myself into believing ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... suffered! what suffered![51] Vengeance sees not the wicked, nor repays the foolishness ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... soldier school! But, now take that young chap for a sample. What on earth does he know outside of drill and mathematics and what you call discipline? What could he do in case we cut off all this—this foolishness—and came down to business? I'd be willing to bet a sweet sum that, take him out of the army, turn him loose in the streets, and he'd starve, by gad! before he could ever earn enough to pay for ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... knew the emptiness and foolishness of the gay world," I said in a sage manner, "you would be thankful for our quiet life ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... delighted at the reunion that Mr. Brewster's foolishness made them laugh merrily. He hugged Polly until she cried for breath, then he shook hands over and over again with Anne and the girls, Mrs. Brewster, remonstrating meantime, that she wanted ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the book, by denouncing it as a lying fiction. Nay, one of the most affecting illustrations of pure and undefiled Christianity that ever proceeded from an uninspired pen, was gravely declared, by an organ of cotton divinity, to be an ANTI-CHRISTIAN book.[5] Truly, indeed, the wisdom of man is foolishness with God. "He disappointeth ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... now to a consciousness of all my foolishness and wickedness; the revelation of the misery, present and future alike, which my conduct had prepared for me, coming to mind, with a sudden, sharp stroke of painful distinctness that prostrated me into an abyss ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... or any signs of those inky patches could I discern. Careful examination showed, however, that here and there the smooth shore was covered with sand of a rather reddish hue, quite unworthy of remark in daylight. The foolishness of my apprehensions seems apparent, but nevertheless I urge everyone to choose a moonlit night and a companion of some sort for traversing these three miles ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... the point of view of "the natural man" is the heavenly seed that God gives His people to scatter. "The things of the Spirit of God ... are foolishness unto him." "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." His beginnings are ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... of a very different type. This was Matthew H. Mitchell. He was severe and dogmatic, allowing no foolishness in his school. He was strict and impartial in his treatment of the boys, and, though we did not like him, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... him in the North Sea,' the mate answered, 'and all the arguing in the world won't convince them of their foolishness. After a time you will not find his ignorance and superstition amusing. However, what I want to say to you is this: the men in the foc's'le declare that the grub isn't well cooked, and that you haven't given them plum duff yet. You must let ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... breath you deliberately deprive your little daughter, whom you pretend to love, of the advantages she might gain by a trip abroad! And why? Just because you want her yourself, and might be a bit lonesome without her. But I'll settle that foolishness, sir, in short order. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... greater value on the things condemned by human reason—by the world. Daily we prefer to be poor, sick and despised, to be fools and sinners, until ultimately we regard death as better than life, foolishness as more precious than wisdom, shame nobler than honor, labor more blessed than wealth, and sin more glorious than human righteousness. Such a mind the world does not possess. The mind of the world is altogether unlike the Christian's. It not ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... "I had got you into this by my foolishness; I must needs try to get you out by my wits. Brie, the one who took you by the throat—there has been bad blood between him and your lord this twelvemonth; only last May M. le Comte ran him through ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... contempt and sarcasm,—goose, loon, pig, calf, donkey, etc.,—those figures of speech which, the world over, express the sentiment of the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon regarding the foolishness of babes,—we, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,—"a jewel of a babe," and the like,—legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... against, but yielded to it passively; blaming himself the while for having presumed to indulge in a season of bright hopes and delicious dreams. Why the devil should such an unlucky fellow as he had always been venture to aspire to happiness? It was all foolishness, and sure to end in bitter disappointment; but he had had his lesson now, and would be wiser for ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... woman physician who does not want to vote and who observes uncomplainingly that all remunerative political offices to which physicians are eligible on city or State boards of health or in public hospitals are filled by men. There may be a nurse so busy saving life that she has not realized the foolishness of her disfranchisement on the ground that she was never a soldier to destroy life. There may be some young woman in railroad office, stenographer, bookkeeper or clerk, who meekly approves an order for the discharge of all women employees for the ostensible reason that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... not answer, but he went and sat down on the step of the door, and was just beginning to think what the foolishness was in his way of asking his father, when a little bird came hopping along in the yard. He ran in to ask his mother to give him some milk to feed the bird with. She smiled, and told him milk was good for kittens, but not for birds; and ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... hesitate to say—to every one except her mistress—that SHE considered this Boston trip all foolishness, and that for her part she would have been glad to take Miss Pollyanna home with her to the Corners, she would, she would; and then Mrs. Polly could have gone to Germany all she ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... Struggling like Lizzy," was the thought that rived The wretched mother's heart when she knew all. "But for my foolishness about that shawl— And Master would have kept them back the day; But I was wilful—driving them ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... it,' said Davis, 'It's something here, inside of me. It's foolishness; I dare say it's dam foolishness. I don't argue, I just draw the line. Isn't ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... "They bought 'em at the same store like as not. Don't butt in with foolishness. Le's go home and ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... fingers itch to be at the hay now the sun shines so," he observed, as they passed through the "Big Meadow." "But it's poor foolishness to think o' saving by going against your conscience. There's that Jim Wakefield, as they used to call 'Gentleman Wakefield,' used to do the same of a Sunday as o' weekdays, and took no heed to right or wrong, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the springs bursting out, or the joints working backwards, or the toes turning down and ketching in things. Regular frauds. But it's almost pathetic the way this leg goes on year in and year out, like an old faithful friend, never knowing an ache or a pain, no rheumatism, nor any such foolishness as that, but always good-natured and ready to go out of its way to oblige you. A. man feels like a man when he gets such a thing under him. Talk about your kings and emperors and millionaires, and all that sort of nonsense! Which of 'em's ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... but it was no use, and now they rule him instead of him them, so that he has to enter into solemn compacts with them about not infringing what they call their rights; and, only fancy, he is so fond to foolishness as to be less annoyed by their naughtiness than pleased because, when they promise not to do anything again 'honest Injun,' as they phrase it, they keep their word. Dr. Galbraith calls them in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... you side with a man! Let me tell you that your poor uncle is pitiable in his foolishness ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... him had grown to a fire in her blood and now she was stained by her own passion, pregnant from her own sin. God's punishment had visited her and soon would be visible to all the world. Gro saw however immediately the foolishness of her thought. For one moment she lingered at the thought of the one woman of all the earth, who had immaculately conceived. Then she uttered an inward prayer that the Mother of God would lighten her understanding and give her clearness ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... her. If she was my own girl I'd stop it—I would so." Then he added, in a curious tone, this vague defence: "As for Viola, she would be all right if they would leave her alone. She's gifted in a way I don't understand; but if she isn't twisted by Clarke's foolishness she's going to make some man a good wife. She's a good girl, and, as I say, if she was my own child I'd serve notice that this circle business should stop. I wish you'd talk to 'em. I don't count—but they'll listen to you. I'm glad to have met ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... you—proud that you live in my house, proud that I've known and loved you, and tried to teach you the joy and the foolishness of throwing your ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... a gentleman," I answered him slowly, my face red with anger at Singleton's foolishness, "I never learned at all. But to toss a poor drunken fool like that over one's head any boy ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... of it as a child, for any peculiarity in his behavior was laid to his well-known idiosyncrasies; Celeste suspected he was in love, but was blindly determined to believe she was the chief attraction in his eyes. Nattie, if she thought about it at all, imagined he was entirely cured Of that former "foolishness," as she termed his one attempt to put his devotion into words. And as for Jo, being so opposed to anything of a sentimental nature himself, naturally he was unwilling to observe any indications of the kind in another, and any glaring revelations that forced themselves ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... eyes seemed to be upon everyone at once, and it was vain to try and crack nuts, draw caricatures, or eat peppermint lozenges—the rod would come down immediately with a thump! and the offender, as he stood in a corner of the room with a fool's cap on, had time to fully realize the foolishness ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... reflection that the points made in this controversy by the authors of "Hannah Thurston" and "Miss Gilbert's Career" are not much stronger than her own, she must remember her favorite theory, that all foolishness sounds more respectable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... tradition with Margaret Fuller as estimated by her friends, we shall assume that she was not a wholly balanced character,—that she must have been a great and noble woman to have had such friends, but that there may have been in her some element of foolishness which her friends excused and at which the ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... the nature av the baste to put the comether on the best av thim - not the prettiest by any manner av manes - but the like av such woman as you cud lay your band on the Book an' swear there was niver thought av foolishness in. An' for that very reason, mark you, he was niver caught. He came close to ut wanst or twice, but caught he niver was, an' that cost him more at the ind than the beginnin'. He talked to me more than ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... wisdom of the woods," he said, "but the woods are going fast; in a few years there will be no more trees, and my wisdom will be foolishness. There is in this land now a big, strong thing called 'trade,' that will eat up all things and the people themselves. You are wise enough, Nibowaka, to paddle with the stream, you have turned so the big giant is on your side, and his power is making you great. But this is not ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... want something," leaning her weary head against Mona's, "but it's more than tonics—it's a new body that I'm needing, I reckon. I daresay it's only foolishness, but sometimes I feel like a little child, I want to be took care of, and someone to make much of me, and say like mother used to, 'Now leave everything to me. I'll see to it all!' It seems to me one wants a bit of ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... there is no need to elaborate the point. Of those who are likely to examine the book, some already know the underlying truth involved, others will grasp it when it is first presented to them (and for these my slight and pleasant labors are designed), and the rest will find a stumbling-block and foolishness—save for the entertainment to be had in the reading ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... book, and its most striking characteristic to me is its absolute moral, dispassionate impartiality. Outward loveliness of the material universe, inward ugliness of human nature in its various distortions; the wisdom and the foolishness of man's aims, and the modes of pursuing them; the passions of the senses, the affections of the heart, the aspirations of the soul; the fine metaphysical experiences of the transcendental religionists; the semi-sensual, outward piety of the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... before she revived. Sorrow and repentance for her foolishness in leaving a home where her husband loved her and where her children would have worshiped her, had she permitted them to do so, had sapped all her strength. The sudden shock of seeing Hosea and the knowledge that he had bought her as a slave nearly ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... yo' Bibles 'stead of studyin foolishness. (He gets up and starts into the store. Clarke and the little girl follow him.) Reckon Ah better git dat medicine. ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... "I call it foolishness," he said, aloud, talking, of course, to himself, for there was no one else in the comfortable room, the window of which opened out upon the most quaint garden ever seen. "It's all right to save up your money in a box and keep on dropping it through a slit; ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... for "brother of foolishness,'' i.e. foolish!), a man of Judah whose son was a member of David's bodyguard. He was possibly the grandfather of Bathsheiba (see 2 Sam. xi. 3, xxiii. 34), a view which has been thought to have some bearing on his policy. He was one of David's ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... vales more beautiful than ours; 480 Nor saw a band in happiness and joy Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod. I could record with no reluctant voice The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line, 485 True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong And unreproved enchantment led us on By rocks and pools shut out from every star, All the green summer, to forlorn cascades Among the windings hid of mountain brooks. [i] 490 —Unfading recollections! at this hour The heart is almost mine with which I felt, From some hill-top ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... still playing games with those antique lead tossers?" Masterson grinned suddenly. "Thought he'd have outgrown that foolishness years ago. By the way, how's ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... They got me over to Josie's last night to ask me to help. It's a big programme. And I wanted to warn you in advance. You've got to stop all your capers; no more camps on Sugar Creek, no more tomboy foolishness; no more general nonsense. You've got to be a civilized woman, and conduct yourself according to the rules in ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... upon his foolishness!" exclaimed Humphrey. "I had all but forgotten my nose, but he will be ever bringing it to my mind. Yet, if the mole on it take us safely through London, I complain not. And I do hope he forget not his instructions and become again upon our hands the witless old man of last night." He advanced ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... survey of these ancient and great civilisations of the past has taught us anything at all, it is this: the patriarchal subjection of women can never lead to progress. We must give up a timid adherence to past traditions. It is possible that the freeing of women's bonds may lead in some cases to the foolishness of licence. I do not know; but even this is better than the wastage of the mother-force in life. The child when first it tries to walk has many tumbles, yet we do not for this reason keep him in leading strings. We know he must learn ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... his side, the fancied image of her paled, vanished. The real creature was adorable, but, for some reason, maddening, and not, at all events, the being of his fancy. Their old relations—ethereal and exquisite, no doubt—now seemed an empty mockery, self-deluding foolishness. He coloured at the remembrance of all that Disraeli had hinted, and Reckage had brutally declared, on the large topic of idealism in passion. A man, in spite of all determinations to be uncomplaining, knows the How much and How little that he may demand, merely as a man, from any given ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... it was up to me to stop this pharisaical foolishness, I took a new view of things; decided I wasn't so much, after all; ceased reprobating my friends who wanted to drink; had no advice to offer, and stopped pointing to myself as a heroic young person who had ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... had at first grown faster than his wife, and the change in his manner had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were worth it, and that two thousand more or less was ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... a sudden hand on his shoulder. "No one doubts that, my boy. You're true gold. But it's sheer foolishness to go on in the same old way that's proved a failure a hundred times. In heaven's name, now that we've hauled her out of that infernal groove, don't let idiotic sentimentality spoil everything! Don't shy at the consequences! I'll be ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... foolishness has gone far enough. I'm sick and tired of it," he declared. "If you carry on any more we'll never ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl
... the open space of ground afterwards used as Islington Market. Booths were erected opposite the Infirmary and in Folly Lane. It was like all such assemblages—a great deal of noise, drunkenness, debauchery, and foolishness. But fairs were certainly different then from what they have been of late years. They are now conducted in a far more orderly manner than they were formerly. I went to a large one some years ago, in Manchester, and, on comparing it with those of my young days, I could hardly ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... eyes close in death. A Catholic goes out of the world thinking of Jesus crucified. So long as a Church holds on to that great fact, she will have a grip on human minds and hearts that can not be broken. The cross, as St. Paul said, a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes. The Catholic Church has picked up the fact of Jesus' death and held it aloft like a burning torch. Around the torch she has thrown all sorts of dark philosophies, but through the philosophies ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... of this foolishness; what can you think? But I am so agitated, so nervous. I hope ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... that little coloured boy lives in the alley did it—he isn't anyways near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie got mad and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him. That's what he said, and it was his own foolishness, because Verman won't let ANYBODY call him 'nigger', and if Georgie was goin' to call him that he ought to had sense enough not to do it when he was layin' down that way and Verman all ready to be the paddler. And ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... you for the two best reasons in the world. The first, for yourself; and the second, that ye're your father's son. And to pretend that a wedding between you two children would not give me the greatest pleasure in life would be idiot foolishness. I feel it my duty to you, however, as well as to my girl, to talk the thing over plainly. Have you any notion now," I asked, "as to Nancy's feeling ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... of each pale cheek a small red spot the size of a wafer had now made its appearance, and continued to grow larger. Elfride momentarily expected a recurrence to the lecture on her foolishness, but Knight said no ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... proved-up rogue in every other way; but as for fearing to let him sleep about the house, or fearing to let him cook his master's food, or fearing to let him carry firearms—well! Perhaps, it is conceit, or maybe just ordinary foolishness. It ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... in torture; all his illusions—desires and sentiments blended—were cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discovered a deplorable faculty; a new cause for being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness made him suffer. How these coarse young men lied! Gustave seemed to him a genuine idiot, Arthur Papillon a pedant, and as to Jocquelet, he was as unbearable as a large fly buzzing between the glass and ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... disciples travelling to Emmaus, at his first salutation he calls them fools, saying [O fools, and slow of heart to believe], Nor may this seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther delivered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly even to the all-wise God himself [The foolishness of God (says he) is wiser than men]; in which text St. Origen would not have the word foolishness any way referred to men, or applicable to the same sense, wherein is to be understood that other passage ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... you into that. It's all very well to say that you are a free agent and that fathers don't coerce their daughters nowadays. The trouble is that your father does. You let him do what he likes with you. He has got you hypnotized; and you won't break away from this Freddie foolishness because you can't find the nerve. I'm going to help you find the nerve. I'm coming down to Blandings Castle when you go ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... true, your mother is not the person to make a daughter-in-law happy. Neither, it seems, did you do what you could to please her. You annoyed her terribly with your codger-like ways, if I may be allowed that term. You made but little effort to improve, thinking, no doubt, that it was all nonsense and foolishness; that it was just as well to wear your hat in church, and sit with your boots on top of the stove, as any ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... closely wedded to him that to be cut away from her was to fall like pallid clay from the soaring spirit: surely he was stunned and senseless when he went to utter the words to her mother! Now that he was awake, and could feel his self-inflicted pain, he marvelled at his rashness and foolishness, as perhaps numerous mangled warriors have done for a time, when the battle-field was cool, and they were weak, and the uproar of their jarred nerves has beset them, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her sister, sternly, and she was now as white as the snowy lace about her neck, "there shall be no more of this child's play. You shall not ruin your life by any such foolishness. What will Vane Cameron think of me for granting him the permission he craved? It was equivalent to admitting that he would find no obstacle in his path. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... blaming himself for the harm which would have happened to his poor children, he should punish them for their faults in the most cruel way? We would say, with reason, that this father is a fool, who joins injustice to foolishness. A God who punishes the faults which He could have prevented, is a being who lacks wisdom, goodness, and equity. A God of foresight would prevent evil, and in this way would be saved the trouble of punishing it. A ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... "The foolishness of the people" is a title that might be given to many a son of a wise father. The very energy and prudence of the parent, especially when employed on ambitious or worldly objects, seems to cause distaste, and even opposition, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... he said, as Jim came up, 'I thought you was running. Whoa!' The last remark was addressed to a bored-looking horse attached to the mowing-machine. From the expression on its face, the animal evidently voted the whole process pure foolishness. He pulled up without hesitation, and ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... however, the former tried his luck at angling, he not only failed to catch anything but also lost the hook which his brother had lent him. This became the cause of a quarrel. Hosuseri taunted Hohodemi on the foolishness of the original exchange and demanded the restoration of his hook, nor would he be placated though Hohodemi forged his sabre into five hundred hooks and then into a thousand. Wandering disconsolate,* by the seashore, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that he should fancy such a thing. For all that Grandmamma and my Aunt Dorothea used to say, I always look down upon the South. All the people I have seen who came from the South seemed to me to have a great deal of wiliness and foolishness, and no commonsense. I suppose the truth is that there are agreeable people, and good people, in the South, only they ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... his eyes contributed nothing. He had made up his mind to be perfectly calm and pleasant with Ruth. He had read in novels and seen on the stage situations of this kind, where the father had stormed and blustered. The foolishness of such a policy amused him. A strong man had no need ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... find it; and bidding him of all things not to be afraid of the eighteen thousand demons who kept watch and ward over the treasure, told him to be off before she became too angry at her daughter's foolishness in thus giving away so ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... winter decide it, you may. I will allow of no promises nor engagement. I cannot go to Italy, and I know, as nearly as a human creature can know any fact, that I shall be ill again through the influence of this English winter. If I am, you will see plainer the foolishness of this persistence; if I am not, I will do what you please.' And his answer was, 'If you are ill and keep your resolution of not marrying me under those circumstances, I will keep mine and love you till God ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... enough to what might be told. Jesus heard, and he saw what it meant; and afterwards he told his friends: "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders ... foolishness; all these evil things come from within, and defile the man" (Mark 7:21-23). The evil thought takes shape to find utterance, and gains thereby a new vitality, a new power for evil, and may haunt both speaker and listener for ever with its ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... attitude discloses a heart that despised, not only the parent, but also the divine commandment. Hence, nothing remains for the evil-minded son but to grasp an opportunity for obtaining evidence to betray his father's foolishness. He does not laugh at his drunken father as a boy would, nor does he call his brethren merely that they may look upon a laughable spectacle. He means that this shall be open proof that God has withdrawn from his father and has accepted ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... foolishness is wise at any rate so far. But the fool who thinks himself wise, he is a ...
— The Essence of Buddhism • Various
... the girl broke in; "a foolishness to think you can constrain a girl, compel her affections, command her love, by such means as you have employed towards me. You think that it predisposes me to be wooed, that it opens my heart to your son, to see myself gaoled that he may pay ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... whole lot in 2 lessons if she will tend to business but the way she smiled at me when I come out and the looks she give me I am afraid if she seen much of me it would be good night so I will half to show her I won't stand for no foolishness because I had enough flirtations Al and the next woman that looks X eyed at me will catch her death ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... very slender. The post was out of the question—she probably never got any letters, and the arrival of one in a man's handwriting would no doubt be the cause of endless comment in the household. The foolishness had been not to make a definite appointment with her when they had parted before dawn. But they had been too overcome with love to think of anything practical in those last moments, and now the only thing would be for him to go again to-night to the tree, and hope that she would meet him ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... told him of the marvellous doings of those millions, of their wonderful enterprises and inventions, and of the rivalry that exists between them; and I doubt not that, mingling with them, as ye must have done, ye have acquired wisdom, beside which the wisdom of the wisest of us in Ulua will seem foolishness. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... The old man tried to straighten up. "I shell not go in der boads. I, mit childrun und grandchildrun, to go in der boads? It is der foolishness—all ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... Anyway, let's be friends. I don't know anybody in this town except one man, and him and me's had a row over the head of the Daily Sensation!..." "Yes," she interrupted, "you've lost your work through your foolishness. What are you going to do now? It isn't very easy to get work." "I'll get it all right if I want it, I've enough money to keep me easy for a year without doing a hand's turn, and I daresay my mother and my Uncle William 'ud let me have more if I wanted it. I don't want to be on a ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... mind, it will profit him nothing. Nor can philosophy make a man religious. "Man's wisdom," "the wisdom of the world," is of no avail to find spiritual truth. "God chose the foolish things of the world, to put to shame them that are wise." "The word of the Cross is, to them that are perishing, foolishness." By this language he, of course, does not mean that Christianity is irrational, and therefore to be believed on authority. That would be to lay its foundation upon external evidences, and nothing could ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the surrender of the town, the scheme of the "Destroyers" was unwittingly disclosed through the foolishness of the man who had been apparently chosen to carry it out. Judge Kock, who was a friend of Dr. Krause's, came over to Johannesburg for the purpose of making a last and determined effort to destroy the mines. Being a great friend of the Krauses, he was invited to stay at their house. In a burst ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... that concerning the number of the Heavens and their site, different opinions are held by many, although the truth at last may be found. Aristotle believed, following merely the ancient foolishness of the Astrologers, that there might be only eight Heavens, of which the last one, and which contained all, might be that where the fixed stars are, that is, the eighth sphere, and that beyond it there ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... "Love's-Charm," kept running through her mind, and she wondered in what way that little trinket would be a Love-Charm to her. Suddenly and impulsively she raised it to her lips. Then she gave a quick, startled glance around, fearful lest she had been observed. She smiled at what she considered her foolishness, replaced the pin, and pushed the canoe from ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... more than utter foolishness of this latter Charlie o'er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose, there is but one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch, the sorriest of jargons, compared with which even Roth Welsch is dignified and expressive, has yet one word to express what would be inexpressible by any word ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... ridiculous figure which the cure's enemies had made him out to be. Speaking one day to his assembled clergy, in regard to the cure of Ars, he said: "Gentlemen, would that you all had a trifle of the foolishness about which you make so merry. It would not prejudice ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... thinking very seriously, during these serious days, and I am writing you more earnestly than I ever wrote any one in my life. I want you to forgive me all my foolishness, and let me come back to you. I have missed you so bitterly, and thought how good and how sensible you were, and how you took care of us all years ago, and gave Rose and me skates that Christmas that you didn't ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... then!” said I. “Tell him the man’s a fraud and the place foolishness, and if he’ll go up there to-morrow he’ll see all that’s left of it. But tell him this, Uma, and mind he understands it: If he gets talking, it’s bound to come to Case, and I’m a dead man! I’m playing his game, tell him, and if he says one word my blood ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... foolishness, this losing sleep and wearing ourselves out," declared a tall, thin, pasty-faced individual. "Here's my plan: just break up into parties of two or three and each party strike out for a different town and catch a freight out of the state. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... empty talk, and ask, Who does not believe what is true? This they say because they see truth in the light of their own heaven; therefore, to believe what they do not see they call either simplicity or foolishness. These are they who constitute the lung region of heaven, also ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... that it's all a great foolishness, all this highbrow stuff about navigation. I've got clerks fourteen years old in my offices that can figure circles all around you and your navigation. Ask them that if two chronometers ain't better than one, then how can two thousand ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Emperor, "was good, wise, and learned. At another period he would have been an excellent king, but he was worth nothing in a time of revolution. He was lacking in resolution and firmness, and could resist neither the foolishness nor the insolence of the Jacobins. The courtiers delivered him up to the Jacobins, and they led him to the scaffold. In his place I would have mounted my horse, and, with a few concessions on one side, and a few ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... it true in fact, that the Oracles did cease immediately upon the Death of Christ; but, as I noted before, the Sum of the Matter is this; the Christian Religion spreading it self universally, as well as miraculously, and that too by the Foolishness of Preaching, into all Parts of the World, the Oracles ceas'd; that is to say, their Trade ceas'd, their Rogueries were daily detected, the deluded People being better taught, came no more after them, and being asham'd, as well as discourag'd, they sneak'd out ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... seems so to me because I don't understand 'em. It's quite possible. One thing's sure, they don't understand me. At least, the women don't; I can get along with the men—most of 'em. They're not a bad lot, if immature. You can stand a lot of foolishness from children once you realise their grown-uppishness ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... him died out; and before the year ended, Jake Dennison, putting into practice the art he had learned from his teacher, had thrashed Mr. William Bluffy, the cock of another walk high up across the Ridge, for ridiculing the "newfangled foolishness" of Ridge College, and speaking of its teacher as a "dom-fool furriner." Little Dave Dennison, of all those opposed to him, alone held out. He appeared to be proof against Keith's utmost efforts to ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with him to Philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Petrushka to go to the river. She begged him not to go. Petrushka laughed and said he would be back quickly. Tatiana cried, and implored him on her knees not to go. Then Petrushka grew irritable and almost rough, and told her not to vex him with foolishness. Reluctantly and sadly she gave in ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... "made a fool of me at your ease. You spoke your wheedling words, and he was in there to listen, and to laugh, by my soul! You coaxed, you stroked, you sidled, you whispered, and he was in there laughing, laughing, laughing! Oh, madam, you talk of his young foolishness, but you make your profit of ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... such policy would ruin the paper as soon as it became generally known that the editor was trying to do everything by such an absurd moral standard. What would become of business if this standard was adopted? It would upset every custom and introduce endless confusion. It was simply foolishness. It was downright idiocy. So Clark said to himself, and when Marks was informed of the action he seconded the managing editor with some very forcible ejaculations. What was the matter with the chief? Was he insane? Was he going to ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... nature is past finding out in its capacity for stupidity and foolishness. God gives every man the power to choose good or evil, and no amount of evidence can dispossess him of this elective franchise. Hence he is the arbiter of his own fate. Abraham said to Dives concerning his brethren, 'If they believe not Moses and the prophets, ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... had risen from his chair in great distress. "Your aunt was talking nonsense because she's piqued over a business matter, George," he said. "She doesn't mean what she said, and neither she nor any one else gives the slightest credit to such foolishness—no one ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... how either to read or write, there were instituted schools, universities, composed almost entirely of ecclesiastics who, knowing nothing but their own jargon, taught this jargon to those who wished to learn it; the academies came only a long time afterwards; they despised the foolishness of the schools, but did not always dare to rise against them, because there are foolishnesses that are respected provided that they ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... it could be used, and had advertised them all. It seemed there was nothing you could cook that didn't need a dash of it. He kept me between a chill and a sweat all the time. Sometimes, but not often, I just had to grin at his foolishness. I remember one picture he got out showing sixteen cows standing between something that looked like a letter-press, and telling how every pound or so of Graham's Extract contained the juice squeezed from a herd of steers. If an explorer ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... King Leopold encouraged her. After his return to Brussels, he had resumed his correspondance in a more serious strain; he discussed the details of foreign politics; he laid down the duties of kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper press. On the latter subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity. "If all the editors," he said, "of the papers in the countries where the liberty of the press exists were to be assembled, we should ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Penaranda had happened to lose his money, he answered me: "He gave it to an agent to use, he to share in the profits, and then paid no attention to it for three years after. He gave up his time very greatly to the building of bridges and roads, and while he was busy in such bits of foolishness, the other made the most of his time and consumed it all." Another person, of whose philanthropy and gentlemanliness I have positive proofs, told me that if he obtained the government of a province, he would assemble all the influential men and make them an offer to renounce ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... was he, Men called him good and just; But his wisdom seemed like foolishness, By ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... night before, and of his suspicions as to the guilt of Creviss and his gang in the mysterious robberies that had occurred in the two towns. "But," he concluded, "it is not up to me to get at the matter. It is work for the sheriff. However, if those boys try any of their foolishness with us, we'll turn in and send them to the reform ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... and you was in mine I'd say: 'Marshal, I'm willin' to swear if you'll give me the chance I'll quit the racket. I'll drop the tanglefoot and the gun play, and won't play hoss no more. I'll be a good citizen and go to work and quit my foolishness. So help me God!' That's what I'd say to you if you was marshal and ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... delight in queer and odd characters, in which the Greeks probably would not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please by their pure absurdity and good-natured foolishness. Archilochus and Hipponax wrote many a jocular song; but the fun of the thing would have been lost, had the sting which they contained ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... denying it," said Davis; "it's something here, inside of me. It's foolishness; I daresay it's dam foolishness. I don't argue; I just draw the line. Isn't there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now, it is believed, almost entirely discontinued, and with them have gone the stories. The Negroes are very shy of telling them, and both the clergyman of the Church of England, and the Dissenting Minister set their faces against them, and call them foolishness. The translator, whose early childhood was passed in those islands, remembers to have heard such stories from his nurse, who was an African born; but beyond a stray fragment here and there, the rich store which she possessed has altogether escaped his memory. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... determined me to try at some decided measure for restraining or changing looks and behaviour that excited such comments. And I thought my safest way would be fairly and frankly to tell him this very inquiry. It might put him upon his guard from such foolishness, without any more ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... ought not to have helped you this time. Any one who is so crazy as to change places with a blind man should be left without help, so be careful, as I am getting tired of your foolishness, and will not help you again if you do anything as foolish as ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... assented. "I can't see that I owe him anything, and he once led me into a piece of foolishness that nobody but himself could have thought of. I knew the thing was crazy, but I did it when he urged me, and I've regretted it ever since. Still, when I meet the fellow I expect I shan't have a word of ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... enough to provide him with the money for Kamala, and it earned him much more than he needed. Besides from this, Siddhartha's interest and curiosity was only concerned with the people, whose businesses, crafts, worries, pleasures, and acts of foolishness used to be as alien and distant to him as the moon. However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them, in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still aware that there was something which separated him from them and this separating factor was him being a ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... my foolishness about scaffolds and heads rolling off—I assure you it was infinitely worse than a beheading. A heavy sense of finality brooded over all this, unrelieved by the hope of rest and safety following the fall of the axe. These ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... and a large party agreed with him. The people, however, who had absolute trust in the young general, insisted that he should have his way; and after a long and fierce debate, the senate with almost inconceivable foolishness consented that Scipio should sail for Carthage, as he so much desired it, but that he must do so at the head of no more than thirty thousand ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... mean you to keep it for yourself, Charley," corrected Mr. Adams. "That's foolishness. He meant that you should keep it safe until he could ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... it, Madge," Dicky interrupted. "Forget that scientific foolishness you absorbed when you were school ma'aming. Besides, this cat is a thoroughbred, never been outside the home where she was born till now. Do you happen to know what this gift you are tossing aside so nonchalantly would have ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... Anyway, I could just enter into part of it! I'm tired of being tied to crutches and people thinkin', because of them, one never even wants any foolishness and fun, ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... make any appeal to your feelings with regard to your mother and the children, because if you had thought even of me a little this would not have happened. I'm very, very sorry for it. I believe it happened from your weakness and foolishness, or you could not have behaved with such irresponsibility, but I'm trying to look at it quite calmly. I therefore propose to do nothing at all for three months. If I acted on your suggestion you might regret it ever after. If in three months you write ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... to show the rarified atmosphere of his thought world. He lived upon the hilltops, so to speak. And it is curious to note that in spite of its derision, the world has come to value many of his ideas which at first were deemed but foolishness. The importance of taste and beauty in the schoolroom, for instance, is now accepted throughout the world. Yet when he first preached this, what was then a new idea, and had the walls of his Temple School in Boston tinted in restful colors, and placed the busts of Socrates and ...
— Three Unpublished Poems • Louisa M. Alcott
... advise you to make such a break. Besides, you have no money, and you couldn't get very far without it. I shouldn't even think of it, if I were you. Dwelling on a thing like that sometimes gives it a chance to get hold of you. But this is all foolishness, of course. You are going to Jefferson, and you'll take your medicine like a man if you have to. That's all, I believe, for the present. Keep a stiff upper lip, and if anybody comes to see you, don't talk too much. I'll be over at the county seat in a day or two, and ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... What then! do you think the old practice, that 'they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can,' is less iniquitous, when the power has become power of brains instead of fist? and that, though we may not take advantage of a child's or a woman's weakness, we may of a man's foolishness? 'Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must be at the top, some one at the bottom.' Granted, my friends. Work must always be, and captains of work must always be; and if you in the least remember ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... various birds and graced with blossoming trees. And, O king, immediately on seeing that mass of energy, flaming and brilliant as fire, seated with upraised arms, facing the sun, my friend, the graceful lord of the Rakshasas, Maniman, from stupidity, foolishness, hauteur and ignorance discharged his excrement on the crown of that Maharshi. Thereupon, as if burning all the cardinal points by his wrath, he said unto me, 'Since, O lord of treasures, in thy very presence, disregarding me, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... but of words,—"replace MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout,"—did not stop it for one minute. The Academy is thus made; its wit and that wisdom which produces so many follies, are composed of extreme lightness combined with extreme heaviness. Hence a good deal of foolishness and a good many ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... use of the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge-worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence, you must also confound ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... tell me, "was about the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no worth a snuff. What a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! I dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but Mr. Dishart wouldna gi'e a blade o' grass for't. Ay, and I used to think that in their foolishness about women there was dagont little differ atween the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
