"Silly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... craze about Medea da Carpi has become well known, thanks to my silly talk and idiotic songs. That Vice-Prefect's son—or the assistant at the Archives, or perhaps some of the company at the Contessa's, is trying to play me a trick! But take care, my good ladies and gentlemen, I shall pay you out in your own coin! Imagine my feelings when, this morning, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... be so interested in that silly needlework," she added. "You are not yourself, or you would not work so ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... to these come the Elks, who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a rare good joke, save that brotherhood and good-fellowship are actually a saving salt which excuses much that would otherwise be simply silly. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... guard, was a marble table on which were various giftbooks in blue and gilt. He only turned to that home when there was no other place to go. Politics, with its attendant travel and excitement, allowed him to forget the what-might-have-beens. Foolish bickering, silly pride, and stupid misunderstanding pushed him out upon the streets and he sought to lose himself among the people. And to the people at length he gave his time, his talents, his love, his life. Fate took from him his home that the country ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Manuel, and do you have done with your silly flatterings, which will never wheedle anything out of me! So you have trapped Queen Freydis in mortal flesh. Therefore I must abide in the body of a human woman, and be subject to your whims, and to your beautiful big muscles, you think, until I lend a spark of Audela's true life to your ridiculous ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... and longer, than the majority of them. Had he began, as a child, to take pleasure in strong exercise; no doubt he could have stood it as well as Ralph and Percy, who look absolutely benefited by it. Unfortunately, I allowed my wife's silly objection to prevail; until the last three years, when I insisted that they should ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... long time, he talked to himself, talked as though two or more men were chatting together, changing his tone of voice and acting in every way as though he were taking part in a lively and interesting conversation. There was nothing silly in what he said, although the subject matter was often difficult to follow. He would always answer if anyone spoke to him, slowly to be sure, but always sensibly and agreeably. Often, before he could answer, it was as though he had to wake up as from ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... opinion Smith encouraged. They reached Jamestown July 21st, in fine spirits, to find the colony in a mutinous condition, the last arrivals all sick, and the others on the point of revenging themselves on the silly President, who had brought them all to misery by his riotous consumption of the stores, and by forcing them to work on an unnecessary pleasure-house for himself in the woods. They were somewhat appeased by the good news of the discovery, and in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth! And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... never looked at me once, I don't see why you should want me to be miserable about it," was Susan's smiling rejoinder; "and if the girls in your day couldn't be happy without admiration, they must have been silly creatures. I've a life of my own to live, and I'm not going to let my happiness depend on how many times a man looks at me." In the clear light of her ridicule, the spectre of spinsterhood, which was still an ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... makes glad his father, forty fools avail him not:— One moon silvers all that darkness which the silly ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... "Silly. I won't let you go," she told him, firmly; and, reading the expression in her face, he felt a dizzy wonder. "We'll find a nice secluded spot; then we'll sit down and wait for night to come. We'll ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... with conquest I come off, (And that I shall do sure enough,) 810 Quarter thou canst not have, nor grace, By law of arms, in such a case; Both which I now do offer freely. I scorn (quoth she) thou coxcomb silly, (Clapping her hand upon her breech, 815 To shew how much she priz'd his speech,) Quarter or counsel from a foe If thou can'st force me to it, do. But lest it should again be said, When I have once more won thy head, 820 I took thee napping, unprepar'd, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... this work, it may be mentioned, is referred to in the annual catalogue or provided for in the annual budget; and yet it is often the most vital and lasting service a teacher renders his students—especially when their silly parents provide them with more pocket money than the professor's entire income for the support of himself, his family, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... polite art of dancing, in which he so far succeeded as to be able to skip about with the most regular agility, though he never had a sufficient share of good sense to be able to dance with gracefulness. Thus accomplished, he excited the admiration of every silly coquette, and the envy of every fluttering coxcomb; but by all young gentlemen and ladies of understanding he was heartily despised as a mere civilized monkey. He performed every thing by imitation; and he imitated nothing (unless he was forcibly ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... they are, and there they run! The Black-a-moor enjoys the fun. They have been made as black as crows, Quite black all over, eyes and nose, And legs, and arms, and heads, and toes, And trousers, pinafores, and toys— The silly little inky boys! Because they set up such a roar, And ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... (Balhaldie) to James. Balhaldie had been in London; he found the party staunch, 'but frighted out of their wits.' The usual names of the official Jacobites are given— Barrymore, Sir William Watkyns Wynne, and Beaufort. But they are all alarmed 'by Lord Traquair's silly indiscretion in blabbing to Murray of Broughton of their concerns, wherein he could be of no use.' They had summoned Balhaldie, and complained of the influence of Kelly, an adviser bequeathed to Charles by his old tutor, Sir Thomas Sheridan, now dead. 'They saw well ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... Jesuit's fidelity, Adrienne, asked herself if it was reasonable, if it was possible to believe, that the prince, whose ideas of love seemed to be so poetical, so elevated, so pure, could find any charm in the disjointed and silly chat of this young girl? Adrienne could not hesitate; she pronounced the thing impossible, from the moment she had seen her rival near, and witnessed her style both of manners and conversation, which, without detracting from the prettiness ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... his mates, hath more to thank the saints for than miserable I, who, blessed with wealth, am cursed with loneliness, and loving my fellow-men, yet know they are but sheep. God's sheep, natheless, silly and deaf to the cry of their true shepherd, and misled by ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... bets about Dr. Mackenzie's ties, what colour they were; but we never won or lost, because we never saw them. His beard was so big. And once Miriam pretended there was a huge spider on the ceiling, but he wouldn't look up, though she screamed. He told her not to be a silly little girl. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... ('a beautiful tale, indeed,' and in after life his favourite of them all), Burke, Clarendon, and others of the shining host whose very names are music to a scholar's ear. In the same year he reads 'a most violent article on Milton by Macaulay, fair and unfair, clever and silly, allegorical and bombastic, republican and anti-episcopal—a strange composition, indeed.' In 1827 he went steadily through the second half of Gibbon, whom he pronounces, 'elegant and acute as he is, not so clear, so able, so attractive as Hume; does not impress my mind so much.' In the same ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... troops; and he did, in fact, consider it strange that not a single soldier had made his appearance. So he reached home in a very uneasy state of mind. Felicite, still petulant and full of courage, became quite angry at seeing him upset by such silly trifles. Over ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage[7-7] green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sure enough; but I'm but a sleeping partner in the concern. I were obliged to become a member for peace, else I don't go along with 'em. Yo see they think themselves wise, and me silly, for differing with them. Well! there's no harm in that. But then they won't let me be silly in peace and quietness, but will force me to be as wise as they are; now that's not British liberty, I say. I'm forced to be wise according to their notions, else ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that's silly!" said King. "We can't help it that the Fultons moved away, but that's no reason we shouldn't have anybody to play with. Let's telephone for our two new members right now, and begin the club all ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... was trusting. Not credulous, silly trusting, but thoughtful trusting, accepting such facts as were definitely known. Faith was trusting. And faith without works was dead simply because there could be no faith without works. There was no such thing as belief that did ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... free-handed enough! She gives what costs her nothing, and takes all she can get, and is, after all, a trollop, like the rest of us, Fanchon, who would be very good if there were neither men nor money nor fine clothes in the world, to tempt poor silly women." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... like nothing I ever heard in my life. I saw a light shine through the trap, and then I heard a sort of moaning. Last, I heard a bang, and the light went out. I staggered down the passage half silly, started to run, and ran straight into the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... straight round the house to the south-side door, whither everybody went to consult the doctor. He knocked, and in a moment the door opened, and a young girl with weak blue eyes, with a helpless droop of the chin, and mouth half opened in a silly smile, looked out at him. She was a girl whom Doctor Prescott had taken from the almshouse to assist in the lighter household duties. She was considered rather weak in her intellect, though she did her work well enough when she had ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon the doorstep. It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do. I am not as a rule addle-headed; his influence must have ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... that before us which calls our thoughts to other matters than the follies you mean. Remember what is to come, and put your silly jealousy to sleep." ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sad, seeing nothing around me but a waste of dreariness. I kept asking God to give me patience, and not let me fancy myself alone. But the days were dismal, and the balls and dinners frightful. I seemed in a world without air. The girls were so silly, the men so inane, and the things they said so mawkish and colourless! Their compliments sickened me so, that I was just hungry to hide myself. But at last came what I want to ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... all the Army, and just to have said to 'em, if so you liked, 'He was a scamp, and he wasn't thought good for naught; but he kept true to me, and you see it made him go straight, and I aren't ashamed to call him my friend.' I used to think that, sir, though 'twas silly, perhaps. But it's best as it is—a deal best, no doubt. If you was ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... remember that where one individual dies while fasting (not from the effects of fasting, but from the disease for which the fast was begun), perhaps one hundred thousand starve because they have too much to eat. Silly as this may sound, it is the truth, and this is s the explanation: Overfeeding causes digestive troubles and a breakdown of the assimilative and excretory processes. The more food that is taken while this condition exists the less nourishment is extracted from it. The food ferments pathologically, ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... "Not so silly as to condemn something you know little or nothing about," Mr. Crane said, in his serious, kindly way. "My dear Carlotta, even though you don't 'believe in' the supernatural, do try to realize that your lack of belief doesn't bar the rest of us from ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... have seen how the great orators Crassus and Antonius pretended that they did not know Greek: the same silly pride made others pretend they had never heard of the Jews, even while they were practising the Mosaic rites. And the number of noble names (Cornelii, Pomponii, Caecilii) inscribed on Christian tombs in the reigns of the Antonines proves that Christianity had made ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... tug that brought my oil and provisions—that I was homesick. I said the ocean was glorious; that there was a Byronic sublimity in lighting up the lantern; that standing behind a counter and showing dry-goods to silly, giggling girls couldn't be compared with it; that I hadn't blushed in six months, and that I didn't think I should ever be willing to come back to a world full of grinning snobs and ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... with the cool colour of shadow. My eyes were dazzled with the whitewash—natural enough—yet the impression of solitude had been so complete. It was uncanny, as though he had materialized out of the shadow itself. Silly idea! I ranged my eye along the row of houses, and I saw three other figures I had missed before, all broodingly immobile, all merged in shadow, all watching me, all with the insubstantial air of having as I looked taken body ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... visits, at first because he was ordered so to do, and after once or twice because he had seen Virginia, and was struck with her appearance. He was a good-looking young man, about nineteen? but not very bright— indeed, I ought to say very silly, although at the same time not at all bashful. He made an acquaintance with my mother, who was delighted with his condescension, and declared that he was one of the most pleasant young men she had ever met with; and he would have been very intimate ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... justification for her. Madame Nathan had decided that the marriage should take place, and her vanity was hurt at its missing fire through Antoinette's fault. She thought her scruples certainly quite praiseworthy, but exaggerated and sentimental: and thereafter she lost interest in the silly little goose. It was necessary for her always to be helping people, with or without their consent, and she quickly found another protegee to absorb, for the time being, all the interest and devotion ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... episode should open the eyes of detractors of Pitt to the extraordinary difficulty of his position. Of one thing we may be certain. The readiest way of assuring the doom of the hapless monarch was to take up some one of the silly or guileful schemes then mooted for pressing the British Government to take sides in the trial. Pitt's rigorous neutrality was the best means of helping the advocates of Louis in their uphill ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of your own personal activity is a mere preliminary to the activity of Mrs. Omicron. Without hers, yours would be absurd, ridiculous, futile, supremely silly. By spending she completes and justifies your labour; she crowns your life by spending. You married her so that she might spend. You wanted some one to spend, and it was understood that she should fill the situation. She was brought up to spend, and ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... These silly speculations would not deserve even this slight indication of their purport were it not that Fourier founded a sect and had a considerable body of devoted followers. His "discovery" ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... running it. He's played a game that knocks us silly. He's come down on us and cinched things for the ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... most of the men one meets are so hopelessly silly-tiresome," she went on. "It's strange, too. Nearly all of them have gone to college-Yale, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... adventure de luxe. There had been warmth and light, men's laughter, women's voices, and children's play. But the loudest jester among the men was now silent, huddled deep in his great coat; and the young woman who had clapped her hands in silly ecstasy when it was announced that the train was snowbound was weeping and shivering by turns. It was cold—so cold that the snow which came sweeping and swirling with the wind was like granite-dust; it clicked, clicked, clicked against the glass—a bombardment of untold billions of infinitesimal ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the bodily wants of other families, called to functions which require the devotion of all their thoughts. "We will add, by way of supplement to M. Comte's doctrine, that much of the daily physical work of a household, even in opulent families, if silly notions of degradation, common to all ranks, did not interfere, might very advantageously be performed by the family itself, at least by its younger members; to whom it would give healthful exercise of the bodily ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... "It's silly, jumping to conclusions, any way," she informed herself. "Why suspect him just because he wears the costume of the country, has the usual red handkerchief in his possession and is tall? There are half a dozen big red handkerchiefs in this ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... ship's i's at me. She thinks to look down on me, but she can't, for I hold myself up; and though we brekfists and t's at the same board, I treat with a deal of hot-tar, and shoes her how much I dispeyses her supper-silly-ous conduck. Besides these indyvidules, there's another dome-stick, wich I wish to menshun particlar—wich is the paige Theodore, that, as the poat says, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... will not forswear herself. I shall go on with it, Lady Julia. I have made up my mind to that. I suppose it will never come to anything, but I shall stick to it. I can live an old bachelor as well as another man. At any rate I shall stick to it." Then the good silly old woman comforted him and applauded him as though he were a hero among men, and did reward him, as Lily had predicted, by one of those now rare bottles of super-excellent port which had come to her from her ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... from slavery. In point of mental experience, I was but nine years old. That one, in such circumstances, should aspire to establish a printing press, among an educated people, might well be considered, if not ambitious, quite silly. My American friends looked at me with astonishment! "A wood-sawyer" offering himself to the public as an editor! A slave, brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of liberty, justice, and humanity! ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the present fashion to make conundrums: there are books of them printed, and produced at all assemblies: they are full silly enough to be made a fashion. I will tell you the most renowned: "Why is my uncle Horace like two people conversing?—Because he is both teller and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... try to explain. When Mrs. Chester first wanted me to take charge of a Camp Fire, I thought I was just a silly, stupid, useless girl. But she said she knew I wasn't, and that I ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... that's why we're here now. We'll fix this land up and get it going and then far ahead all the agricultural produce which we made possible will move the wheels of a new humanity. Pray God, yes—a new humanity! One that doesn't stuff itself silly with whisky and beef and beer and die ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... things in M. Renan; but it seems to us that his treatment of this matter is simply the ne plus ultra of the degradation of the greatest of issues by the application to it of sentiment unworthy of a silly novel. In the first place, he lays down on general grounds that, though the disciples had confessedly given up all hope, it yet was natural that they should expect to see their master alive again. ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... knew how silly a girl is, dreaming and vowing things! Why, I even promised her that that man and I should exchange our first kiss before her. Isn't it ridiculous? Poor goddess! She will never see that kiss of love; for, after all, I don't suppose you intend to ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... in the marriages of superior women, as if they loved the image merely which their own minds created, as Dante did when he bowed down to Beatrice. When we see intellectual men choosing weak and silly women for wives, and women of exalted character selecting unworthy and wicked husbands, it does seem as if Providence determines all matrimonial unions independently of our own wills and settled purposes. How often is wealth wedded to poverty, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... old men and children, were busy on the farms ploughing, harrowing and putting in the seed. Though the men were away there was no dearth of labour on the farms and everything was going on as it should. The silly-looking, heavily-built, three-wheeled carts, empty or loaded with manure, bumped along behind the broad-backed Flemish horses, guided solely by a frail looking piece of string. The driver, seated crosswise ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... contrived by a disreputable adventurer, Joe Smith, with the aid of three confederates, who afterward confessed the fraud and perjury of which they had been guilty. It is a shame to human nature that the silly lies put forth by this precious gang should have found believers. But the solemn pretensions to divine revelation, mixed with elements borrowed from the prevalent revivalism, and from the immediate adventism which so easily captivates excitable imaginations, drew a number of honest dupes ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... letter and read through the chapter of the HIGH WOODS that is written, a chapter and a bit, some sixteen pages, really very fetching, but what do you wish? the story is so wilful, so steep, so silly - it's a hallucination I have outlived, and yet I never did a better piece of work, horrid, and pleasing, and extraordinarily TRUE; it's sixteen pages of the South Seas; their essence. What am I to do? Lose this little gem - for I'll ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rest. She toiled prodigiously, incessantly, indefatigably. She implored Prothero to admit that if she was prodigious and incessant, she was indefatigable, she never tired. There was nothing wonderful in what she did. She had caught the silly trick of it. It could be done, she assured him, standing on your head. She enjoyed doing it. The wonderful thing was that she should be paid for her enjoyment, instead of having to pay for it, like other people. He argued vainly that once you had achieved an income it was no longer necessary ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... "Silly, hot-headed boy," said Captain Murray. "I saw you both, and came up to speak to my old friend's son, when I could not help hearing what your enemies would call traitorous remarks. Frank, my lad, you are the younger in years, but you have the older ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... with fiery eyes, and, screaming, Flapped his wings at Pau-Puk-Keewis. 205 "All are gone! the lodge is empty!" Thus it was spake Pau-Puk-Keewis, In his heart resolving mischief;— "Gone is wary Hiawatha, Gone the silly Laughing Water, 210 Gone Nokomis, the old woman, And the lodge is left unguarded!" By the neck he seized the raven, Whirled it round him like a rattle, Like a medicine-pouch he shook it, 215 Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven, From the ridge-pole of the wigwam ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... old goose, and names of that sort, it's because I love you, John, so well. And when I speak of people being middle-aged and steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act a kind of play with Baby, and all that, and ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a soft little laugh, and she sank down among the cushions of the sofa, while her white morning dress floated around her like a cloud. "Charlie thinks it is silly, and Kit thinks it is sillier, and mamma thinks it is the very silliest thing I ever did yet; but for all that I am going—that is, if the rest of you are." Which, by the way, was always this little Flossy's manner of speech. She was going to do or not to do, speak or keep silent, approve ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Great drama, in 3 parts, of a poignancy interest, assisting with anguish at the terrible peripeties of a Young Girl, falling in hand, of Bohemian bandits. Pictures of this film are celicious, being taken at fir trees and mountan's of the Alpes.— Great success. Comic. Silly laughter." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... 'You must be in a devil of a state!' said he; 'though of course it was my fault—damnably silly, vulgar sort of thing to do! A thousand apologies! But you really must be run down; you should consult a medico. My dear sir, a hair of the dog that bit you is clearly indicated. A touch of Blue Ruin, now? Or, come: it's early, but is man the slave of hours? what do you say to ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... remarked that in all Indian stories where two or more sisters are the dramatis personae, the elder is invariably represented as silly, ridiculous, and disgusting—the younger, as wise ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... "You silly flower," said Thistledown, "see how quickly I will make you bloom! your waiting is all useless." And speaking thus, he pulled rudely apart the folded leaves, and laid them open to the sun and air; while the rose ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... of the poor soul with his clamor for a job; the satisfied, brutal egotism of Brome Porter, who lived as if life were a huge poker game; the overfed, red-cheeked Caspar, whom he remembered to have seen only once before, when the young polo captain was stupid drunk; the silly young cub of a Hitchcock. Even the girl was one of them. If it weren't for the women, the men would not be so keen on the scent for gain. The women taught the men how to spend, created the needs for their wealth. And the social game they were instituting in Chicago was so emptily imitative, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "Why, you silly boy," she said, with a laugh, a few minutes later, "I had begun to think that, just as I had to ask you for a kiss in the old times, and again when you met me, I should have to take this matter in hand. Why, I never thought of anything ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... this friendship, and the grievance was, or appeared to be, so sore, that neither boy would speak to the other. Well, this went on for no less than six months, and became the talk of the whole school. These silly boys, however, were so convinced of the sublimity of their respective conducts that they never observed that every one was laughing at them. Daily they passed one another, with eyes averted and noses high in the air; daily they fed their memories with the recollection ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... herself on the tremulous wabbly-legged divan. Kedzie didn't like the phrase, either, now. When he had first smitten it from his brain she had thought it an inspiration and him a king. Now it sounded silly, coarse, a little indecent. Of course it had not succeeded. How could he ever have been so foolish as to utter it—"Kiss me again—who are you?" Why, it ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... a cat, a dog, a silly hen, An owl, a bat,—where they are wont to lodge That still sojourn, nor care to shift their quarters. Thou'rt constancy? I am glad I know thy name! The spider comes of the same family, That in his meshy fortress spends his life, Unless ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... gave me the necklace. He said that it would make me truthful. What a silly I have been ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... spent over the lunch, the boys doing their best to entertain the girls and succeeding admirably. Of course a good many of the things that were said were silly, but everybody was in good humor and out for a good time, so what did it matter? In their high spirits they forgot all about the unfortunate ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... thing," thought Nekhludoff. "We all live in the silly belief that we ourselves are the lords of our world, that this world has been given us for our enjoyment. But this is evidently untrue. Somebody must have sent us here for some reason. And for this reason it ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... not," he returned; "silly things, girls are. There's Dorothy, you know; we were playing at executions the other day—she was Mary Queen of Scots an' I was the headsman. I made a lovely axe with wood and silver paper, you know; and when I cut her head off she cried awfully, and I only ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... cards and smiling over them, no matter what might be dealt you. And that is some improvement over the girl I've been, isn't it? For I've never had to struggle very hard for anything I've wanted. I want to be friends, but I'm not silly enough to think you won't tell me again that you—care. I want to be friends, but not at the price of your heart-ache and disappointment, and—why, I wonder, do I get all tangled up when I try to explain myself to you? ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... that the telegram was an evil thing. A vaguely superstitious consciousness of being in the presence of Fate laid hold upon him. His great day of triumph had its blood-stain. A victim had been needful—and to that end poor simple, silly old Tavender was a dead man. Thorpe could see him,—an embarrassing cadaver eyed by strangers who did not know what to do ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... swimming, play tennis, go yachting, and have a good time?" Assuming that you are physically fit, it certainly is your duty if your presence will cause your hosts and the rest to enjoy themselves. But why ask such a silly question? You will do all those things just because you want to. You would be an awful fool to pass up the chance of having all sorts of fun when everything is just right for it. And you would be an ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... who're just ready to fly at the throat of Providence and defy all—all superstition. Oh, yes, I know," she hurried on, as the man raised his strongly marked brows in astonishment. "You'll maybe think me a fool, a silly, credulous fool. But I know—I feel it here." She placed her hands upon her bosom with a world of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... of his treasure than of all his gold, the young lord's reputation and, above all, his poverty were fatal flaws in any would-be son-in-law of his. As soon as he realised the danger he put every obstacle in the way of his daughter's silly romance, even to the extent, it is said, of locking her in her room, and closing his door in the face of her lover. "If your reputation, my lord, were equal to your rank," he told him in no ambiguous terms; "and if your fortune matched your family, I should have naught to say against ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... as crazy about you as ever," he said earnestly. "I never cared a turn of my hand for any one but you. Queer too, but it's so. I'm not much on talking love—the real kind, you know—but I guess it must be what I feel for you. It must be what is keeping me from snatching away that silly stuff there in your hand, and having you in my arms now—whether you'd like it or not. Say," he went on, "I've come home to make this house really yours, and to give you the right of asking what I'm doing around here. You've won all your points—pomp, ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... you're about tired of your life,' I said. 'I'm pretty sure I am; but why we should ride straight into the lion's mouth, to please a silly girl, I can't see. I haven't over much sense, I know, or I shouldn't be here; but I'm not such a dashed fool as ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... few secondary actors in the comic line, such as BAPTISTE the younger, who performs in much too silly a manner his parts of simpletons, and one DUBLIN, who is the ostensible courier; not to speak of some others, whose parts are ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... said Charity, not waiting to be asked, "I grieve to say that I was silly enough to take up my abode with an old lady in Dublin, who never knew what discretion was, and always acted from impulse; my instigation was irresistible, and the money she gave in her drives through the suburbs of Dublin was so lavishly spent ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shall shear the fleece: So many minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years Past over, to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah! what a life were this! how sweet, how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroidered canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? O yes it doth, a thousand-fold it doth. And to conclude, the shepherds' homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... this story?" Adelaide burst out with almost a scream. "What is he to me, your silly Angelot? What did you say just now? My daughter and—I must ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Hereupon he told her of his adventure and began to pour the gold from the bags in heaps before her, and her sight was dazzled by the sheen and her heart delighted at his recital and adventures. Then she began counting the gold, whereat quoth Ali Baba, "O silly woman how long wilt thou continue turning over the coin? now let me dig a hole wherein to hide this treasure that none may know its secret." Quoth she, "Right is thy rede! still would I weigh the moneys and have ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... got a cloudy mind. Yet he's clever, in his way. There's the door-mat of the shop. As soon as any one puts a foot on that mat, the clock in my kitchen strikes two. All his fake. But he does rile the customers. Silly young fool. If there's two parcels to deliver, it's the wrong one ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... few years back Mary had lived with a Mrs. Mason, while Ella, at the time of her mother's death had been adopted by Mrs. Campbell. "But," said he, "I never think of Ella in connection with Mary, they are so unlike; Ella is proud and vain and silly, and treats her sister with the utmost rudeness, though Mary is far more agreeable and intelligent, and as ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... this line in a sing-song two or three times over)—"the devil who makes us dream and doubt, and who made life interesting by persuading Eve to eat the silver apple—what would life have been if she had not eaten the apple? We should all be in the silly trees of the Garden of Eden, and I should be sitting next to you" (he said to Mrs. Bergmann), "without knowing that you were beautiful; que vous etes belle et que vous etes desirable; que vous etes puissante et caline, que ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... terms with old Sperber, because he too had a strong objection to the way things were going down in the town. "That's all silly impudence down there," he would say. "Well, we'll see how far they'll go with it—we'll see. Those fellows in the town might give over scribbling; no cock would crow the louder, nor would loaves of bread get any smaller. But we ...! Suppose we up there, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... encouraging, and when he read a paper on the process of manufacturing steel without fuel before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it is said that every British steelmaker roared with laughter at the "crazy Frenchman" and that it was voted not to mention his silly paper in the minutes of the association. [Footnote: "On the 13th of August, 1856, the author had the honor of reading a paper before the mechanical section of the British Association at Cheltenham. This paper, entitled 'The Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel without Fuel,' was the first account ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... morning, and a prayer before and after every meal. They read only very good books, and the Honorable Misses Stanhope sew for the poor old women and teach the poor young ones. They work harder than anyone I ever knew, and they call it 'improving the time.' They thought me a very silly, reckless young woman, and I think they all prayed for me. One night after they had sung some very nice songs they asked me to play, and I began with 'My Little Brown Rose'—you know they all adore the negro—and little by little ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... teacher exclaims, turning again to the dolls. "I hear that you dispute and quarrel sometimes, and I am very sorry for it. That is very foolish. It is only silly little children that we expect will dispute and quarrel. I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... he had. They arrested him for some silly thing, and he's hurt." She hurriedly recounted Allan's story, adding, in conclusion, "That black boy came all the way across the Isthmus to ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... me with its continual fog-horn, and I thought I would write to the owner (a small local dairy-farmer) to see if he could manage to find another field in which to batten this cow, where it could moo till it broke its silly tonsils for all I should care; so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... set springes in a frostie night To catch the long-bill'd woodcocke and the snype, By the bright glimmering of the starrie light, The partridge, phaesant, or the greedie grype; Ile lend thee lyme-twigs, and fine sparrow calls, Wherewith the fowler silly birds inthralls. ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... blazing. "You silly fool, what do you think you're doing when you play games with a mob like this? Do you think they're going to play fair? You're no clod, you know better than that—" He leaned over her, trembling with anger. "You ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... scandal— in a word, he was run down by public opinion. But the leaders of the cabal were not the less struck by the news of my success, which sounded in their ears like the falling of a thunder-bolt. The silly princess de Guemenee, who, with her husband, has since become a bankrupt to so enormous and scandalous an amount, flew without delay to convey the tidings of my victory to the duchesse de Grammont, to whom it was a death-blow. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... "Hout tout, silly quean," said the mother; "na, na, it's come to muckle, but it's no come to that neither; for an he brain you he maun brain me, and I have garr'd his betters stand back. Hands aff is fair play; we maunna heed ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... for you," says I, in a passion, casting my purse on the table. "'Tis infamous to treat an honest gentleman thus, and silly besides. Come, dear," altering my tone, "do let me ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... where those in the same set do meet. I always liked her, and always felt at my best with her, and thought no end of her opinion, and so forth. She was a friend and a real chum to me, and to lots of other fellows. But one never thought of love-making in connection with her. All the silly things one says to ordinary women she would have laughed at. If one had sent her flowers to wear, she would have put them in a vase and wondered for whom they had really been intended. She danced well, and rode straight; but the ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... and you are called a baby, Laugh and you are called a fool, Yield and you're called a coward, Stand and you're called a mule, Smile and they'll call you silly, Frown and they'll call you gruff, Put on a front like a millionaire, And ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... it?" asked John disgustedly, waving the letter. "Aren't women the limit? Here's this one going off without a word, or an excuse, or anything. Just gone! And a silly note thrown on my desk. I tell you women have absolutely no sense ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I believe I must except the costumes of the bicyclesses, who were unfailingly dumpy in effect when dismounted, and who were all the more lamentable for tottering about, in their short skirts, upon the tips of their narrow little, sharp-pointed, silly high-heeled shoes. How severe I am! But those high heels seemed to take all honesty from their daring in the wholesome exercise of the wheel, and to keep them in the tradition of cheap coquetry still, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... accompany her friend, and lend the light of her countenance to Madame de Verzenay. For this infirmity of purpose many female Dracos would have ordered her off to instant execution—very justly. That silly little Fanny only kissed her, and said, "She was a dear, kind darling." What can you expect of such irreclaimably weak-minded offenders? They ought to be sentenced to six months' hard labor, supervised by Miss Martineau; perhaps even this would not work ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... a silly person, more likely to make a cause ridiculous than to help it. There were things in his sermon and its accompaniments, however, that might harm the King's cause otherwise than by the bad literary taste of the defence. There was a tone of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... gossip's tongue. This was the time, too, when such words as blanket were not spoken by young ladies if men were about; for it is a bedroom word and therefore immoral. Bell objected from the bottom of his silly soul that Lady Macbeth should soil her mouth with it. "Blanket of the dark," he says, "is an expression greatly below our author. Curtain is evidently better." "Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself?" Whereat Bell again complains that Lady Macbeth is "unnecessarily indelicate." "Though ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... sweetness of nature, it would chance that John Mortimer's love for his children would overflow in his wife's direction, on which, as if to recall him to himself, she would say, not coldly, but sensibly, "Don't be silly, John dear." But if he expressed gratitude on her account, as he sometimes did when she had an infant of a few days old in her arms, if his soul appeared to draw nearer to her then, and he inclined to talk of deeper and wider things than ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... able to weave the richest stuffs, in which not only the colours and the pattern were extremely beautiful, but that the clothes made of such stuffs possessed the wonderful property of remaining invisible to him who was unfit for the office he held, or was extremely silly. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... wake them up and scare them so that some of the silly things will fly down where we can catch them," said Reddy, licking ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... manner changed under the poor silly girl's embraces, and she turned extremely pale: directing one appealing look, first to Mrs Boffin, and then to Mr Boffin. Both understood her instantly, with a more delicate subtlety than much better educated people, whose perception came less directly ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... "Don't be silly, Harold," she retorted. "You have kissed me so much now that my hair is all down, and my face must be a sight. Lips are what you are supposed to kiss with—you don't have to kiss ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when Sir John felt that his dignity required a butler she gave it up. I dare say she was glad enough to go.... 'Eh, mem, I am effrontit,' she used to say to me if I went in and found her spotless kitchen disarranged, and I thought of her to-day when I saw those silly little painted faces, and was glad she had been spared the sight of her descendants.... But what am I raging about? What does it matter to me, when all's said? Let the lassies dress up as long as they have the heart; they'll have long years to learn ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... 'Don't talk so silly, child; you don't know w'at the work'ouse is like. It's enough to call down a judgment upon you, bein' so ungrateful to Providence for all the good things it's given you,' cried her mother. 'Fancy the work'ouse after this!' Mrs Clay put a world of expression into the last word, ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... own counsel, that would have been our sufficient excuse at last. They must have refused: nothing need have been said about it till the night of the ball; and I would lay my life, Lord Oldborough would never, in the mean time, have thought of it, or of them. But so silly! to object in that way, when you know that the slightest contradiction wakens Lord Oldborough's will, and then indeed you might as well talk to his own Jupiter Tonans. If his lordship had set a beggar-woman's name at the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... said, sitting down. "I was sitting here, and all of a sudden, do you know, I felt a terrible piercing pain in my side . . . unendurable, my nerves could not stand it, and . . . and it led to this silly performance. This is the age of nerves; there is ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... incident about a fool Irishman he inveigled from New Orleans to sling a pick on his little morgue of a narrow-gauge line. 'Twas sorrowful to hear the little, dirty general tell the opprobrious story of how he put salt upon the tail of that reckless and silly bird, Clancy. Laugh, he did, hearty and long. He shook with laughin', the black-faced rebel and outcast, standin' neck-deep in ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... in all this tremendous confusion of fighting I have made the right choice. It wasn't necessary for us Turks to fight at all; it wasn't even desirable. We had suffered a severe set-back in the first Balkan War, and in the second we were only just able, owing to the consummate folly of that silly knave, your friend, TSAR FERDINAND, to snatch a brand or two from the burning. What we wanted was rest, and had it not been for you we might have had it—yes, and our wounds might have been healed and our finances restored, while others ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... can you know?" cried Marcella, and suddenly all those stern Rationalists she had read, Huxley and Frazer, Hegel and Kraill, all very bearded and elderly, all very much muddled together, passed before her eyes. "It seems so silly to think you can see from those scratchy marks what I am going to do in years and ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... and repentance had passed over Madeleine, and found her, at the commencement of our narrative, the victim of consumption and internal anguish, the more keen because the more secret. The outward world believed her happy; many silly maidens, in moments of vanity, deemed they could have gained heaven if they were possessed of Madeleine's wealth, her jewels, her carriages, her dresses; but were the veils that shroud the hypocrisy of human joy raised for the warning of the uninitiated, many a noble heart like Madeleine's ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... it's all true as gospel what I'm a-tellin' on you. The hangman chap don't seem to make no more account of them poor devils than if they wos so many wooden dummies, like them 'Quaker guns' as they call—cos they can't hurt nobody, I s'pose—that them silly artful Chinese mounted in the Bogue forts to frighten us, as they thought, when we went to war with 'em last time, ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... such a silly fool as to pine and fret over our romance so cruelly disturbed, though Jeanie was; it nearly broke her heart. No, Richard, my nature is not of that make. I generally get even with people who wrong me. I send you a photo, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... said Lord Bargrave. "Do you suppose you're indispensable here? Do you suppose the Five Towns can't manage without you? Our caste is decayed, my boy, and silly fools like you try to lengthen out the miserable last days of its importance by giving yourselves airs in industrial districts! Your conscience tells you that what the demagogues say is true—we are rotters on the face of the earth, we are mediaeval; and you try to drown your conscience in ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... talent: he knows how to make a hare's face, and they all get him to make a hare's face, and then they laugh. He wears a little ragged cap, which he carries rolled up in his pocket like a handkerchief. Beside the little mason there sits Garoffi, a long, thin, silly fellow, with a nose and beak of a screech owl, and very small eyes, who is always trafficking in little pens and images and match-boxes, and who writes the lesson on his nails, in order that he may read it on the ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... have never loved any one as I love Father Ambrose. When he comes here I always ask him for some rule or direction, so that I may have the happiness of obeying him till his next visit; and it is so trying, is it not, Sister Teresa, when the novices make their silly little jokes about it? Of course, they don't understand, they can't; but to me Father Ambrose means everything I care for; besides, he is really a saint. I believe he would have been canonised if he had lived ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... conclusion of his Homer. Some of the persons thus honoured by Ariosto were vexed, it is said, at not being praised highly enough; others at seeing so many praised in their company; some at being left out of the list; and some others at being mentioned at all! These silly people thought it taking too great a liberty! The poor flies of a day did not know that a god had taken them in hand to give them wings for eternity. Happily for them the names of most of these ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... "Silly boy," at length said Sir John, who had for some time forborne the stripling, "take, then, thy death from a noble hand, since thou preferrest that to peace ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... and rogues may be defined ignorant and silly calculators; for they do not understand their true interest, and they pretend to cunning: nevertheless, their cunning only ends in making known what they are—in losing all confidence and esteem, and the good services resulting ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... alone with your silly talk," cried Toinette gaily. "I am hungry. Besides, I have a headache. You must take care of the store this morning. I will stay here. Prosper will come ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... "Silly Pearl," said she, "what questions are these? There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about. What know I of the minister's heart? And as for the scarlet letter, I wear it for the sake of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at other professions. I acknowledge that I should not have thought so. No man should attempt what I have attempted without means, at any rate to live on if he fail; but I am not the less unhappy because I have been silly." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... his hand, and asked me to let the next stone I flung up fall into it. He wished, do you see, to know with what weight the stone would fall down, and talked something about gravitation—a word which I could never understand to the present day, save that it turned out a grave matter to me. I, like a silly fellow myself, must needs consent, and, flinging the stone up to a vast height, contrived so that it fell into the parson's hand, which it cut dreadfully. The parson flew into a great rage, more particularly as everybody laughed ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... association. If she could leave it now and never see it again in all her life no single detail of it would ever be forgotten. Its characteristics had been stamped upon her as familiarly as if the hours passed in it had been years. And yesterday was years ago, when the poor silly fool that had been Diana Mayo had ridden blindly into the trap from which her boasted independence had not been able to save her. She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore the restrictions of ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Clagny and Monsieur Gravier looked at each other, feeling rather silly as they beheld the two Parisians in the carriage, while they, like two simpletons, were left standing at the foot of the steps. Monsieur de la Baudraye, who stood at the top waving his little hand in a little farewell to the doctor, could not forbear from smiling as he heard ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... and then, I think I see; but then I go off on a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue. And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on the first ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is what Torvald says now. (Wags her finger at her.) But "Nora, Nora" is not so silly as you think. We have not been in a position for me to waste money. We have both had ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... "I want 'oo to propose. Daisy and me, we silly women, we want 'oo and Georgie to tell us what to do. But if Lucia must ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... all your Beauties;—the Lily, And the Fairy of Willowbrook Farm, And Lucy, who made me so silly At Dawlish, by taking your arm— Miss Manners, who always abused you, For talking so much about Hock— And her sister who often amused you, By raving of rebels and Rock; And something which surely would answer, A heiress, quite fresh ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... angry, Olof," she said entreatingly. "It's very silly of me, I know. Go on with your work, and don't bother about me. Do—or I shall be ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... say you knew Debussy?" he said suddenly. "I? No; but he used to come to see my father when I was a little girl.... I have been brought up in the middle of music.... That shows how silly it is to be a woman. There is no music in my head. Of course I am sensitive to it, but so are the tables and chairs in this ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... Tavernake declared, "I'd like to tell you what I think of your story. I think it's all d—d silly nonsense! This Wenham Gardner, by your own saying, was half mad. There was a quarrel and he's gone off to Paris or somewhere. As to your suggestions about Mrs. ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I believe the silly fellows must have thought they would break their shins over treasure as soon as they were landed; for they all came out of their sulks in a moment, and gave a cheer that started the echo in a far-away hill, and sent the birds once more flying ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a wave of his hand, "a trifle, a silly old song that came into my mind unawares, the leaves being so green and the sky so blue. Had you come a little earlier or a little later, you would have heard the ninetieth psalm. Give you good-day madam. I must ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Gwen had gone to bed without her pet. She would want the silly thing. The strong feeling of affection for his children came over him, battling with something else. He sank in his chair, and gradually his baffled mind went dark. He sat, overcome with weariness and trouble, staring blankly into the space. His own stifling roused him. Straightening ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... which sometimes rendered his sallies very amusing; but, where his friends laughed with him once, they laughed at him a thousand times, for he had a fund of absurdity in himself that was more pleasant than all the wit in the world. He was as proud as a peacock, as wicked as an ape, and as silly as a goose. He did not possess one single grain of common sense; but, in revenge, his pretensions were enormous, his ignorance vast, and his credulity more extensive still. From his youth upwards, he had read nothing but the new ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and enlightened policy. When reason failed, he resorted to sarcasm and mockery. "Because," said he, "we have a right to tax America we must do it; risk everything, forfeit everything, take into consideration nothing but our right. O infatuated ministers! Like a silly man, full of his prerogative over the beasts of the field, who says, there is wool on the back of a wolf, and therefore he must be sheared. What! shear a wolf? Yes. But have you considered the trouble? Oh, I have considered ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... "How silly I am," she murmured as she sank into a chair. "I quite forgot I had not seen you all day, and it happened just after you left for the office. You had not been gone five minutes when Jane came up and gave notice. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... smiled meaningly at the Leading Gentleman, and the Tanga tout asked if all were to hunger for the silly scruples of one. "If the fair-faced Sheikh did not wish to eat of Moussa, none would urge it. Live and let live. The gentlemen were hungry; ..." but the fair young man unreasonably replied, "Then let them eat thee ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... understand the Latin society: but he did understand the wine. If (to prolong an idle but not entirely false metaphor) we have called Carlyle a man who saw and Arnold a man who knew, we might truly call Dickens a man who tasted, that is, a man who really felt. In spite of all the silly talk about his vulgarity, he really had, in the strict and serious sense, good taste. All real good taste is gusto—the power of appreciating the presence—or the absence—of a particular and positive pleasure. He had no learning; he was not misled by the label on the bottle—for ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... you to dance. I desire that you will particularly attend to the graceful motion of your arms; which with the manner of putting on your hat, and giving your hand, is all that a gentleman need attend to. Dancing is in itself a very trifling, silly thing; but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense are sometimes obliged to conform; and then they should be able to do it well. And though I would not have you a dancer, yet when you do dance, I would ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... man, their understandings. This is generally the case of all those who live in places where care is taken to propagate truth without knowledge; where men are forced, at a venture, to be of the religion of the country; and must therefore swallow down opinions, as silly people do empiric's pills, without knowing what they are made of, or how they will work, and having nothing to do but believe that they will do the cure: but in this are much more miserable than they, in that they are not at liberty to refuse swallowing what perhaps ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... scene was going forward, Florizel and Perdita sat quietly in a retired corner, seemingly more pleased with the conversation of each other, than desirous of engaging in the sports and silly amusements ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... woman; those just guardians of human affairs would not have permitted so unequal a conflict; for what if an evil spirit, crafty and knowing in business, had, by his subtlety, overreached a poor, weak, and silly woman, who had not as yet, either seen the sun rise or set, who was but newly born, and thoroughly inexperienced. Certainly, a person who had so great a price set upon her head, as the salvation of all mankind, might well have deserved a guard of angels. Aye, but perhaps ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... a mean game of bluff," said Terwilliger. "I suppose, though, if you were the shade of a duchess, you could simply knock Bangletop silly?" ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs |
