"Insolence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1815, the suppression of African piracy was universally felt to be a necessity. The insolence of a Tunisian squadron which sacked Palma in the island of Sardinia and carried off 158 of its inhabitants, roused widespread indignation. Other influences were at work to bring about their extinction. Great Britain had acquired Malta and the Ionian Islands and had now many Mediterranean subjects. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... refused to show anger at this insolence; but smilingly gave the prince his permission to withdraw that he make ready for his journey through the kingdom which was to ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... proves to be in conflict with the elementary condition of social equilibrium. The subversion of the natural instinct is brought to the logical issues of sin and death. Domestic ties are rudely severed. The crime of treason is risked with an insolence that is fatal to the transgressor. With relentless logic does the Shakespearean drama condemn defiance of the natural ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... been to call upon Earl Raincy at the Castle," said Patsy with unusual demureness. "Louis could not tell what he wanted, but at any rate Earl Raincy promptly sent him and his insolence to—a place you have heard of in church. He said it so loud and plain that the whole house heard him, and he added remarks about royal dukes which would have brought him to the scaffold along with his grandfather, if only he ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... unjust—I smart under his bitter irreligious jests, and conclude at once that he must be the most infamous of men. Base suspicion, which I have so often decried in others! he may be what he appears—a presumptuous infidel, but not a spy. Have I even a right to call by the name of INSOLENCE, what he considers SINCERITY. Is this, I continued, thy humility, oh, hypocrite? If any one presume to maintain his own opinions, and to question your faith, he is forthwith to be met with contempt and abuse. Is not this worse in a Christian, than the bold sincerity ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... plain insolence! Thy men are cowards; thou, an envious traitor; Who, under seeming honesty, hast vented The burden of thy rank o'erflowing gall. O that thou wert my equal; great in arms As the first Caesar was, that I might kill thee Without a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... promoted to command are said to be in general tyrants; in nine cases out of ten, when they are tyrants, they have been obliged to have recourse to extreme severity in order to protect themselves from the insolence and mutinous spirit of the men,—'He is no better than ourselves: shoot him, bayonet him, or fling him overboard!' they say of some obnoxious individual raised above them by his merit. Soldiers and sailors in general, will bear any amount of tyranny from ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... were aghast at such insolence. They did n't know what the effect might be on Miss Prime. They looked at her in alarm. Her cold grey eye impaled Mrs. Warren for an instant only, and then, paying no more attention to her, she said quietly, "I was thinkin' this whole matter over while I was finishin' ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... of hungry children with her, or upon some thin and half-starved man travelling on the hind part of the coach from London to Liverpool, with only eighteen pence in his pocket after his fare was paid, to defray his expenses on the road; for as the insolence of these knights was vast, so was their rapacity enormous; they had been so long accustomed to have crowns and half-crowns rained upon them by their admirers and flatterers, that they would look at a shilling, for which many an honest labourer was happy to toil for ten hours under a broiling ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Have you not told how Rome's insulting priests Led their meek laymen like a herd of beasts; And by their fleecing and their forgery made Their holy calling an accursed trade? Can you such acts and insolence condemn, Who to your utmost power resemble them? "Concerns it you what books I set for sale? The tale perchance may be a virtuous tale; And for the rest, 'tis neither wise nor just In you, who read not, to ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... fail to do her justice in that respect," Royal Blondin said. Richard flushed with anger, but felt helpless under the other man's quiet insolence. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... was so unlike Mrs. Wordsworth, with her kindly, cheery, generous turn, to say that a green field, with buttercups, would answer all the purposes of Lancashire operatives, and that they did not know what to do with themselves when they came among the mountains, that the innocent insolence could do no harm. It became a fixed sentiment when she alone survived to uphold it, and one demonstration of it amused the whole neighborhood in a good-natured way. "People from Birthwaite" were the bugbear—Birthwaite being the end of the railway. In the Summer of 1857, Mrs. Wordsworth's ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... could wish that much of the picture, many of the "figures to let," were away. There is a continuous flowing of graceful lines, in this one figure, with much breadth, that give it a largeness of style, extremely powerful. She luxuriates in pride, insolence, and beauty. The expression is perfect; nor is it confined to her face—it is in every limb and feature. The poor despised author bows low and submissive—and is even looked at contemptuously by a pet dressed monkey, pampered, and eating fruit: a good satire; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... be oddly interpreted. 'Pon honor, they might!" said he, and laughed softly again with singular insolence. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... world. Miss Carew dimly suspected that any society of human beings expects some self-discipline, and some sacrifice to ordinary rules. As it was she wondered how long Molly's neglect of small duties and her frequent insolence would ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... feet and clapped his hand to his sword. "If you were only armed," he exclaimed wrathfully, "you should pay for your insolence by fighting me. Do you take me for an Armenian peddler to be chaffered ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you see? As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it is a beadle. You ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... decried system, is perceptible. Upon the slightest allusion to the revolutionary government, the whole Convention rise in a mass to vociferate their adherence to it:* the tribunal, which was its offspring and support, is anxiously reinstalled; and the low insolence with which Barrere announces their victories in the Netherlands, is, as ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... company of volunteers, and joined the army. The whole force of the province was collected, and ordered to rendezvous at Congarees. Waggons, carts and horses were impressed for the service of his Majesty, and the colonists flattered themselves with the hopes that they would now be able to punish the insolence of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... stay in England, but found that, now that his services were no longer indispensable, he was treated with such insolence that he resigned his commission and returned home, suffering from a sort of mental fever, the result of the trials, troubles, and disappointments that he had met with during his four years in the ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... the very man to exhaust his account of health prematurely. There was, a few years ago, a famous American, possessed of prodigious bodily vigor. He ought to have lived a century. Unfortunately he had this "insolence of health." He was warned several times against overwork, lack of sleep, and abuse of his digestion. But he merely smiled and claimed that such warnings were for others, not for him. He met an untimely end, due as his physicians believed and as he himself acknowledged, when too late, to ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... all right," replied the man of science, unoffended, a tardy recognition of her valor showing through his easy insolence. "But how about the Board of Health, and how about me? She's better off in a hospital, any way. You can't take care of her," with a scornful glance at the draggled finery and striking hat. "What do you want to try it for? I can't let the contagion spread all over the house, you know; how would ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... watching von Moll closely. At the mention of an English ship the man's eyes flickered suddenly. For an instant his face changed. A shadow of uneasiness appeared on it. But this passed at once, and the look of insolence took its place. Donovan was ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... were few, for, though tottering, Wolsey was yet too formidable to be insulted with impunity. On either side of him were two mounted attend ants, each caring a gilt poleaxe, who, if he had given the word, would have instantly chastised the insolence of the bystanders, while behind him rode his two cross-bearers upon homes trapped ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... continually betraying his trade by stuffing his conversation with the technical terms of the taylor—his son's distress at it—the honest rusticity of Frank Oatland—the baseness, vanity and folly of Vortex the nabob—the insolence and amorousness of Miss Vortex his daughter, and the whimsical incidents arising from their various designs, mistakes, detections and disappointments, form altogether a melange of pleasantry highly provocative of laughter, yet by no means so low as to reduce the piece to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... such as wore silk stockings, and had their heads well powdered. Easily fired at the idea of any injustice, and eager to redress the grievances of the poor, Forester immediately concerted with these boys a scheme to deliver them from what he called the insolence of the dancing-master, and promised that he would compel him to go round by ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... a week my master collared me, for my insolence he said, and told me that he would sell me right off. I was tied and put up stairs for safe keeping. I was tied for about eight hours. I then untied myself, broke out of prison, and made for the Underground ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white and trembling. She had intended ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... essentially aggressive, conquering, wasting, which cannot remain stationary, but must grow by alternate appropriations of labor and of land, will come to resemble their earlier prototypes. Already, even, the insolence of their language to the people of the North is a close imitation of the style which those proud and arrogant Asiatics affected toward all the nations of Europe. What the "Christian dogs" were to the followers of Mahomet, the "accursed Yankees," the "Northern mud-sills" are to the followers of the ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of the country. What was Frederick William's policy in this dilemma? He was strongly advised to make peace with France, to throw himself at the head of the whole of his forces into Poland, and to set a limit to the insolence of the autocrat; but—he feared, should he abandon the Rhine, the extension of the power of Austria in that quarter, and— calculating that Catherine, in order to retain his friendship, would cede to him a portion of her booty,[1] unhesitatingly ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the branches, she sometimes fancied, stretched one way—towards their tiny cottage and garden, as though it sought to draw them in and merge them in itself. Its great, deep-breathing soul resented the mockery, the insolence, the irritation of the prim garden at its very gates. It would absorb and smother them if it could. And every wind that blew its thundering message over the huge sounding-board of the million, shaking trees conveyed the purpose that it had. They had ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... to Carthage! Ah! you came to take the zaimph, to conquer me, and then disappear! No, no! you belong to me! and no one now shall tear you from here! Oh! I have not forgotten the insolence of your large tranquil eyes, and how you crushed me with the haughtiness of your beauty! 'Tis my turn now! You are my captive, my slave, my servant! Call, if you like, on your father and his army, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... Paine—not merely in his virtue and intelligence, but that he was a truly great man, who played a great part in human affairs. He will no more admit that Paine was a busybody, inflated with conceit and with a strong dash of insolence, than he will that Thomas was a drunkard. That Paine's speech was undoubtedly plain and his nose undeniably red is as far as Mr. Conway will go. If we are to follow the biographer the whole way, we must not only unhang the dog, but give him sepulture amongst the sceptred ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... blown, We lack not hands to speak with, swords to plead, For proof of peril, not of boisterous breath, Sea-wind and storm of barren mouths that foam And rough rock's edge of menace; and short space May lesson thy large ignorance and inform 660 This insolence with knowledge if there live Men earth-begotten of no tenderer thews Than knit the great joints of the grim sea's brood With hasps of steel together; heaven to help, One man shall break, even on their own flood's verge, That iron bulk of battle; but thine eye That ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... she had just glided up that slope from a region so dark that a spectre might haunt it all day long. But Beauchamp was not of a fanciful disposition, and instead of taking her for a spectre, he accosted her with easy insolence! ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and embarrassment. As for Lord Nick, he did not even smile. He was not, in fact, a man who was prone to gentle expressions, but having been framed by nature for a strong dominance over all around him, his habitual expression was a proud self-containment. It would have been insolence in another man; in Lord Nick it ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... from the government, we proceeded directly to the village, where we found assembled nearly all the Pawnee tribe, who were now returning from the crossing of the Arkansas, where they had met the Kioway and Camanche Indians. We were received by them with the unfriendly rudeness and characteristic insolence which they never fail to display whenever they find an occasion for doing so with impunity. The little that remained of our goods was distributed among them, but proved entirely insufficient to satisfy their greedy ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... something of insolence in his drawl, "it's hardly necessary to explain why I'm here. I'm looking for something to do, and in my condition"—he glanced deprecatingly down at his faded tweeds—"one can't be over nice in selecting ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... mad?—you, just come into the service, treating me in this manner! I can tell you, sir, that you will not be three days longer in the service—no, sir, not three days; for either you leave the service or I do. Of all the impudence, of all the insolence, of all the contempt I have heard of, this beats all—and from such a little animal as you. Consider yourself as under an arrest, sir, till the captain comes on board, and your conduct is reported; ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... their throats by. Only one thing, once again. If any man touches Lorna, I will stab him where he stands. She belongs to me. There are two other young damsels here, whom you may take away if you please. And the mother, I hear, is still comely. Now for our rights. We have borne too long the insolence of these yokels. Kill every man and every child, and ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... persecutions which many of the artists who had come to, or were invited to Naples, were for several years subjected to. Bellisario had established a supreme dominion, or rather a tyranny, over the Neapolitan painters, by calumny and insolence, as well as by his station. He monopolized all lucrative commissions to himself, and recommended, for the fulfilment of others, one or other of the numerous and inferior artists that were dependent ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... insinuations were highly dangerous, not to speak of their offensiveness. It was no joke to be charged, even by a madman, with striving to arouse the crew to mutiny. Nevertheless I tried to console myself as best I could by reflecting that he could not prove his charges; that I need only to endure his insolence for a few weeks, and that there was always a law to vindicate me and punish him, should his evil temper betray him into any acts of ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Italian hero increased the national dislike of French interference, but Napoleon only consented to evacuate Rome in 1870 when he had need of all his soldiers to carry out his boast that he would "chastise the insolence of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... bloods better than he; he drank more than the best-trained toper, but he came out fresh and cool, and ready to begin again as if orgy were his element. Maxime, one of those despised men who know how to repress the contempt they inspire by the insolence of their attitude and the fear they cause, never deceived himself as to his actual position. Hence his real strength. Strong men are ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... thoughts,—it is a suggestion of beauty and deliciousness in a particularly ugly and irksome world,—but to ask such a dainty creature as Sylvie to be my housekeeeper, and make up the tradesmen's books, I could not,—it would be sheer insolence on my part,—it would be like asking an angel just out of heaven to cut off her wings and go downstairs ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Thuilleries, and the tigers chopped of the heads from the dead bodies, and tossed them into the flames of the palace. The tortures of the poor King and Queen, from the length of"their duration, surpass all example; and the brutal insolence with which they were treated on the 10th, all invention. They were dragged through the Place Vendome to see the statue of Louis the Fourteenth in fragments, and told it was to be the King's fate; and he, the most harmless of men, was told he is a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... then led circuitously, but with all the ease in the world, to the story of a Portuguese lady, of a marvellous beauty, and who was deeply enamoured of the Chevalier Miguel de Rasadio, and engaged to be married to him: but, alas for her! in the insolence of her happiness she wantonly made an enemy in the person of a most unoffending lady, and she repented it. While sketching the admirable Chevalier, the Countess drew a telling portrait of Mr. George Uplift, and gratified her humour and her wrath ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... controlled. There can be no doubt that, if the subsequent excesses had not alarmed all prudent friends of liberty, the people of this country could not have been restrained from engaging in the struggle between France and England; but the reign of terror, backed by the insolence of Citizen Genet the minister of the French republic, and afterward by the exactions of the Directory, checked the headlong enthusiasm that otherwise would have embroiled us in the terrible wars of ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... at him; he looked his questioner up and down with such insolence that the boy's fists involuntarily doubled; then he turned his back and walked away. A bystander laughed with amusement. He also was an Englishman, but wore the uniform ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... uneasiness of the count, in appearance at least, was not needed. Raoul had preserved the firmest and most indifferent countenance, although he had not lost a word that passed. He seemed to keep an account of the insolence and license of the two speakers in order to settle matters with them at ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Your insolence shall be well paid for," returned the other, putting by his bow and drawing his sword. Without further argument he approached Robin angrily, and struck at ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Failing both, he was hopelessly bankrupt. The Two Hundredth Regiment was a failure, and he had known the fact for weeks. Perhaps he had never believed that it would be otherwise. At all events, as may have been suspected from his forced submission to the unpardonable insolence of the Adjutant, he had been deceiving the authorities as to the number and condition of the regiment, and applying to his own use sums that might need to be some day strictly accounted for. The previous word will bear repetition—this event in ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... please."—Ormiston would have liked to maintain that same insolence of demeanour, but it gave before an apprehension of serious issues. He looked hard at the doctor, cudgeling his brains as to what the latter's enigmatic speech might mean—divined, put the idea away as inadmissible, returned to it, then said angrily:—"There's ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... instruct the Commons in the doctrine of the common weal, and who are carefully and perseveringly applying themselves to that task; though they are men who know how to bide their time, and they will wait till the soaring insolence of the hero is brought into open collision with that enlightened ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... too, and never persuaded that August's Apostasy was more than a sham one, not even when he made his Prince apostatize too. Their Sovereignty has been a mere peck of troubles, disgraces and vexations: for those thirty-five years, an ever-boiling pot of mutiny, contradiction, insolence, hardly tolerable even ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... except our publisher. But great will be the joy of that furacious individual, as he speculates in secret on the increased demand of his agonised public. Immediately he will put forth an advertisement, notifying the men of "Gotham," that he has on hand a fresh sample of BRITISH INSOLENCE, and hinting that, although he knows they care nothing about such things, the forthcoming piracy of Maga will be on the most extensive scale. Then, all the little newspapers will take us in hand, and bully us in their little way. It is perhaps a shame to forestall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... companion replied in a series of remarks intended as wit, though full of insolence, Don Juan fuming inwardly as he continued to play. In the end they went too far, the courtier making an obscene comparison between the Virgin Mary and Amina, the mother of Mohammed. In an instant the old knight sprang up, white with rage, and dashing ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... land, was no more heinous than the custom prevailing—to everybody's knowledge—at King's Lynn in Norfolk, where the gang had no need to go a-fishing because, regularly as the cobbles came in, the midshipman attached to the gang appeared on the quay and had the "insolence to demand Three of the Best Fysh for the Regulating Captain, the Lieutenant and himself." [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1546—Petition of the Owners of the Fishing Cobbles of Lynn, 3 March 1809.] And if, again, rating a gangsman in choicest quarterdeck language were no serious offence, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... beggars than even at Florence, where however one for fifty in the states of Genoa or Venice do not meet your eyes: And either the word liberty has bewitched me, or I see an air of plenty without insolence, and business without noise, that greatly delight me. Here is much cheerfulness too, and gay good-humour; but this is the season of devotion at Lucca, and in these countries the ideas of devotion and diversion are so blended, that all religious worship seems connected with, and to ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... George) "in no respect differs from that of the slave, except that his master cannot apply corporal punishment by his own hands or those of his overseer, and has a property in him for a limited period. Idleness and insolence of expression, or of looks, anything betraying the insurgent spirit, subject him to the chain-gang or the triangle, or ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... the fiery dragon appeared, and gradually drew near to the fair one, eying her with all the insolence and effrontery possible. When he was quite close, the princess, as she had been instructed by her champion, withdrew the veil, and slipping behind the mirror, disappeared from before the eyes of the fiery dragon, which remained ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... should introduce for the further limitation of royal authority. The majority of the peers adhered to the king, and plainly foresaw the depression of nobility, as a necessary consequence of popular usurpations on the crown. The insolence, indeed, of the commons, and their haughty treatment of the lords, had already risen to a great height, and gave sufficient warning of their future attempts upon that order. They muttered somewhat ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Italian ecclesiastics about Dominiddio) visits Job Huss, the headmaster of Woldingstanton, with the plagues of his desperate trial. However I take it that the author was anxious that his parody should be as complete in form as possible, and, being rather impressed by the insouciance, not to say insolence, of the Satan of the original, seized his chance of bizarre characterisation and "celestial badinage" and let consistency go hang for the time. Certainly the theological disquisitions of Mr. WELLS are remarkable not for their formal logic, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... Bassompierre was not more happy. Despairing of the King's favour unless he could clear up the matter, and by the event justify his indiscretion, he became for those two days the wonder, and almost the terror, of the Court. Ignorant of what he wanted, the courtiers found only insolence in his mysterious questions, and something prodigious in an activity which carried him in one day to Paris and back, and on the following to every place in the vicinity where news of the fleeting beauty might by any possibility be gained; so that he far outstripped my agents, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... indignation of the Christian warriors at the insolence of the bravado and the discourteous insult offered to the queen. Hernan Perez del Pulgar, surnamed "He of the exploits," was present, and resolved not to be outbraved by this daring infidel. "Who will stand by me," said he, "in an enterprise of desperate ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... fight their rivals at the door of some prostitute. This precarious security is however enjoyed only within the walls of the city; the whole neighbourhood of Aleppo is infested by obscure tribes of Arab and Kurdine robbers, who through the negligence of the Janissaries, acquire every day more insolence and more confidence in the [p.655] success of their enterprises. Caravans of forty or fifty camels have in the course of last winter been several times attacked and plundered at five hundred yards from the city ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... beginning of better relations towards the coloured races in general. If the Japanese, by defeat in war, are prevented from retaining the status of a Great Power, the coloured races in general will suffer, and the tottering insolence of the white man will be re-established. Also the world will have lost the last chance of the survival of civilizations of a different type from that ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... ease. In his seedy days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him down upon a sofa. The humbug knowing that his living was in danger, took this very mildly, and readily accepted the renewed assurances of belief which poor Folger soon gave him. In the village of Sing Sing where ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... my lodge next Saturday! drive on, boy. The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an accent ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... storm. But see the haughty household-troops advance! The dread of Europe, and the pride of France. The war's whole art each private soldier knows, And with a general's love of conquest glows; Proudly he marches on, and, void of fear, Laughs at the shaking of the British spear: Vain insolence! with native freedom brave, The meanest Briton scorns the highest slave; 300 Contempt and fury fire their souls by turns, Each nation's glory in each warrior burns, Each fights, as in his arm the important day And all ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... at the strange sights which he saw before, and ignorant of the Latine tongue, roade on and spake never a word: The souldier unable to refraine his insolence, and offended at his silence, strake him on the shoulders as he sate on my backe; then my master gently made answer that he understood not what he said, whereat the souldier angerly demanded againe, whither he roade with his Asse? Marry (quoth he) to the next City: But ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... civility," I answered with equal insolence. "I've done nothing for which I've felt the need of your forgiveness, Miss Van Buren; but if you think I have, pray tell me once for all what it was, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... The French words, which he does not too well understand, completing his conviction that she is a lady, he remains quite silent, frowning. As CLARE held up her glass, two gentlemen have entered. The first is blond, of good height and a comely insolence. His crisp, fair hair, and fair brushed-up moustache are just going grey; an eyeglass is fixed in one of two eyes that lord it over every woman they see; his face is broad, and coloured with air ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... friends dispense, In pity's strains, the worst of insolence, Oft with thee, Lloyd, I steal an hour from grief, And in thy social converse find relief. The mind, of solitude impatient grown, Loves any sorrows rather than her own. Let slaves to business, bodies without soul, Important blanks in ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... business berserk who looked down into her mocking eyes. He was the embodiment of the dominant male,—efficient to the last inch of his straight six feet. What he wanted he had always taken, by the sheer strength that was in him. Back of her smiling insolence lay a silken force to match his own. She too had taken what she wanted from life, but she had won it by indirection. Manifestly she was of those women who conceive that charm and beauty are tools to bend men to their ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... on the island to have done it properly—only what was the use? Who cared—whether they raised their own rice or brought it from the mainland twice a month? It was not a matter to bother about. Water buffaloes, grazing by the roadside, raised their heavy heads and stared at him with unspeakable insolence. They were for ploughing the rice fields, but who had the heart to oversee the work? Better leave the men squatting in content by the roadside, under the straggly banana trees, than urge them to ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... bear patiently. Fiery tempers have to be curbed in Canada West, for the same spirit which at home leads men not to "touch their hats" to those above them in station, here would vent itself in open insolence and arrogance, if one requested them to be a little quicker in their motions. The fabric would hardly come together at all, and then only three joists appeared without anything to cover them. This the men seemed to consider un fait accompli, and sat down to smoke. At length, when it ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... and indifference, which, I repeat, you ought immediately to abandon. For you see the state of things, Athenians, to what a pitch of arrogance he has come—this man who gives you no choice to act or to remain quiet, but brags about and talks words of overwhelming insolence, as they tell us. He is not such a character as to rest with the possessions which he has conquered, but is always compassing something else, and at every point hedging us, dallying and supine, in narrower and narrower circles. When, then, Athenians, when will you ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... yet find it necessary to materially modify the Monroe Doctrine." But the Spaniard, believing discretion to be the better part of valor, had apologized for the acts of his undiapered babes and the excesses of his hungry beggars before his neighbors could stiffen his backbone with their ostentatious insolence. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... in that accidental, haphazard way that momentous happenings have. She met on Elm Street a traveling man from whom Molly Brandeis had bought for years. He dropped both sample cases and shook hands with Fanny, eying her expertly and approvingly, and yet without insolence. He was a wise, road-weary, skillful member of his fraternity, grown gray in years of service, and a little bitter. Though perhaps that was due partly to traveling man's dyspepsia, brought on by years of ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... for a moment towering over her, his feet braced apart, his big hands fiercely locked, his wide chest heaving with the exultant joy of the mastery of her life, his steel-gray eyes sparkling with the insolence ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... as ridiculous as Matrimony, and is a greater Imposition upon the Liberty of Man; the Insolence and Expence of their Mistresses has almost tir'd out all but the Old and Doting part of Mankind: The rest begin to know their value, and set a price upon a good Shape, a tolerable Face and Mein:—and some there are who have made excellent Bargains for themselves that way, and will flatter ye ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... Lady Hatton, haughty to insolence, had been often forbidden both the courts of their majesties, where Lady Compton, the mother of Buckingham, was the object of her ladyship's persevering contempt. She retained her personal influence by the numerous estates which she enjoyed in right of her former ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... plain. He ran for a few yards only. For Mather gave a sharp order to his men, and the Arab, as though he understood that order, came to a stop before a rifle could be lifted to a shoulder. He walked quietly back to Mather. He was brought up on to the glacis, where he stood before Durrance without insolence or servility. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... After this, they behaved with a little more circumspection, and gave us much less trouble. This change of behaviour was certainly occasioned by the man being wounded; for, before, they had only been told of the effect of fire-arms, but now they had felt it. The repeated insolence of the natives, had induced me to order the musquets of the sentries, to be loaded with small shot, and to authorise them to fire on particular occasions. I took it for granted, therefore, that this man had only been wounded with small shot. But Mr King and Mr ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... insolence because, though few of Hugo's secrets were hid from Simon, the intercourse between master and servant was conducted on the basis of a convention that Simon's ignorance of Hugo's affairs was complete. And if the convention was ignored, as it sometimes ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... last, after a life of the most infamous debauchery, he died, in the forty-eighth year of his age, with a bottle of the "Elixir Vitae" in his pocket. The mantle of Paracelsus has been left behind, and a rich inheritance of ignorance, insolence, and vanity, bequeathed to a multitude of heirs; the value of the legacy, however, would have been trifling, but for the credulity of mankind, which renders these worthless possessions of inestimable importance: during the last century, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... simply of two sharp pieces of wood bound together by leathern thongs, and the exchange was by no means a welcome one so far as I was concerned. Had it cut me in two, however, I would have borne it, if only to punish this boorish ruffian for his insolence of yesterday. Malak's chief failing was evidently vanity, and he was very reluctant, even for an hour, to cede the place ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... said his uncle. 'I am extremely displeased at finding that you do not know how to conduct yourself to my servants, and have presumed to act in this lawless, heartless manner, in defiance of what you knew to be your aunt's wishes and my orders, and that you replied to Best's remonstrance with insolence.' ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the advice of his wife, and bade the handmaiden go to his couch as a bride.[29] 2235 Her spirit exalted itself, when she had become pregnant with a man-child by Abraham; stiff-necked in scorn she began to despise her mistress, showed insolence, was overweening, and was unwilling to endure servitude but 2240 boldly began ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... impossible arrogance and insolence of the man, she had thought! and the humiliation to herself of knowing full well that, instead of making this dismissal a scene of subtle superlative cleverness, so that through all his torture he would be obliged to admire and respect her skill—she ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... the Natchez had abandoned the fort, it was demolished, and its piles, or stakes, burnt. As the Natchez dreaded both the vengeance of the French, and the insolence of the Chactaws, that made them take the resolution of escaping in ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... There's the respect[12] That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,[13] The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,[14] The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make[15] With a bare bodkin?[16] Who would fardels bear,[17] To groan and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... insolence?" sputtered Mr. Downes. "You see, Mary, what this young ruffian has done to poor Paul? Stand still, will you?" he added, jerking Paul around as he tried to untie the cod line. Paul began to snivel; I reckon his father ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... title. He was known to all the rich and titled folk in town; and if he was generally able to give them back their stolen valuables at something more than double their value, he treated his clients with a most proper insolence. When Lady M—n was unlucky enough to lose a silver buckle at Windsor, she asked Wild to recover it, and offered the hero twenty pounds for his trouble. 'Zounds, Madam,' says he, 'you offer nothing. It cost the gentleman who took it forty ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... emperor came to Antioch, where, having a desire to visit an assembly of christians, Babylas opposed him, and absolutely refused to let him come in. The emperor dissembled his anger at that time; but soon sending for the bishop, he sharply reproved him for his insolence, and then ordered him to sacrifice to the pagan deities as an expiation for his offence. This being refused, he was committed to prison, loaded with chains, treated with great severities, and then beheaded, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... nicely writ, The ladies might mistake him for a wit.' Then, Millamant is the ultimate expression of those who, having all the material goods which nature and civilisation can give, live on paradoxes and artifices. Her insolence is the inoffensive insolence only possible to the well-bred. 'O ay, letters,—I had letters,—I am persecuted with letters,—I hate letters,—nobody knows how to write letters; and yet one has 'em, one does not know why,—they serve one to pin up one's hair.' 'Beauty ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... had quite enough of this insolence from him!" thinks he. "Suppose I make use of a little diplomacy, and play him some sort ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... made sensible of the error his indulgence had committed, could not permit Grantham the happy display of his bravery; no, he has called to his aid some ten subguardsmen, and addressing the resolute Grantham, bids him lay aside his weapon. Albeit he confesses his surprise at such strange insolence and interference; but, being responsible for the life, thinks it well to hold a parley before taking it. Forsooth his words fall useless on the ears of Nicholas, as defiantly he encircles the woman's waist with his left arm, bears her away to the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Reuben? Have I not told you a hundred times that I would have none of that sort of talk any more? Reuben, indeed! as though you were boy and girl together! Pray tell me this, you forward minx, does he dare to address you as Gertrude when he has the insolence to speak to you in the streets, where alone I presume ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... received by the dignified official who filled the post of Governor of Cuba, he stormed and fairly foamed at the mouth. To be utterly foiled and discomfited by this resurrected pirate, and to be afterwards addressed in terms of such unheard-of insolence and abuse, was more than he could bear, and, in the presence of many of his officials and attendants, he swore a terrible oath that after that hour he would never again give quarter to any buccaneer, no matter when or ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... to the Duchess, the whole Court was silent, saw everything, whispered discreetly, and actually kept the secret that was not entrusted to it. The struggle between the two ladies, not without bitterness, and sometimes insolence on the part of Madame de la Vrilliere, nor without suffering and displeasure gently manifested on the part of Madame de Bourgogne, was for a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... been very patient with you, and extremely considerate, I think, of your importunities and your insolence; but you try my patience almost too far. Take my advice, and don't meddle any farther in matters that do not, and ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... they have seen cities much better fortified than theirs is overthrown by a single attack upon them; while as many as have intrusted themselves to the security of the Romans' right hands, which he now offers to them, without regarding their former insolence, do enjoy their own possessions in safety; for that while they had hopes of recovering their liberty, they might be pardoned; but that their continuance still in their opposition, when they saw that to be impossible, was inexcusable; for that if they will not comply ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... me to scorn, Shepherd boys approach me with insolence, Whose fathers I would not have deigned To set with the dogs of ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... jealous of them; but I could not endure that she should derive a profit from my household, and that no person could purchase an employment in it without paying a douceur to her. I was also often indignant at her insolence to me, and at her frequently embroiling me with Monsieur. It was for these reasons, and not from jealousy, as was fancied by those who knew nothing about it, that I sometimes sharply reprimanded her. The Chevalier de Lorraine, upon his return from Rome, became her declared lover. ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans |
