"Thievish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... When quartered in the Spanish towns, the Czigany invariably sought out their peninsular brethren, to whom they revealed themselves, kissing and embracing most affectionately; the Gitanos were astonished at the proficiency of the strangers in thievish arts, and looked upon them almost in the light of superior beings: 'They knew the whole reckoning,' is still a common expression amongst them. There was a Cziganian soldier for some time at Cordoba, of whom the Gitanos of ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... lodgings at once, but, tempted by the novelty of all he saw about him, he lingered in the streets, and saw cause to alter his opinion of the extreme propriety of the students. Some of them were playing at pitch and toss in the thievish corners. At least half a dozen pairs of antagonists were settling their quarrels with their fists or with quarterstaves, in various secluded nooks. Songs, gay rather than grave, not to say a trifle licentious, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... another name, she engaged a woman to accompany her as a servant; and this woman one day having committed some fault, was beaten by her master, who scolded her and told her she was lazy, thievish, and impudent. Smarting under the punishment, she determined to be revenged, and going to the magistrate told him: 'This man, who seems to you so respectable, is a wicked wretch who has abandoned his own wife, and run away ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... great annoyance of their more aged and sedate relatives, who, in revenge, put in no small portion of their time punishing or pursuing them with angry cries for their deeds of wanton annoyance. One monkey, that has very evidently been there many and many a time before on the same thievish errand, with an air of amusing secrecy and roguishness, slips quickly along a horizontal bough and thrusts its arm into a hole. Its eyes wander guiltily around, as though expectant of detection and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... all-embracing pity filled. "O deepening mystery of life!" he cried, "Why do such souls in human bodies dwell— Fitter for ravening wolves or greedy swine! Just at death's door cursing his flesh and blood For thievish greed inherited from him. Is this old age, or swinish greed grown old? O how unlike that other life just fled! His youth's companions, wife and children, dead, Yet filled with love for all, by all beloved, With ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... wrecked on a desolate shore. The survivors experience the miseries of a long sojourn in the Arctic circle, with inadequate means of supporting life, but ultimately, with the aid of some friendly but thievish Lapps, they succeed in making their way to a reindeer station and so southward to Tornea and home again. The story throughout is singularly vivid and truthful in its details, the individual characters are fresh and well marked, and a pleasant ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... him to be careful, as it contained some rare and rich sweetmeats, negro nature, he well knew, would impel him to search for the bonbons; and the bag, under his clumsy treatment, would bear plain marks of having been tampered with, and, as the African had a most thievish reputation, he would never be believed if he swore himself guiltless. Voila! Here was a neat trick! If it had a drawback, it was that it was too simple, too little risque. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... could speak to her—I fancy she took silence for consent, and thought me damned too unutterably to have one thought left that savoured of redemption—who was to be my captain, but the knave that you saw me cudgel at the ordinary when you waited on Lord Glenvarloch, a cowardly, sharking, thievish bully about town here, whom they ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... was a sheep o' sense, [wot] An' could behave hersel wi' mense; [manners] I'll say't, she never brak a fence Thro' thievish greed. Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence [parlor] Sin' Mailie's ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator; What needeth then apologies be made, To set forth that which is so singular? Or why is Collatine the publisher Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown From thievish ears, because it is ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... might have been expected, into a violent rage with the good-for-nothing landlord. "The thievish dog! he has dared to attack our firm and our head! To-morrow I'll take a whole troop of our fellows there. I'll drive him into his own yard, and we'll all play at leap-frog over him by the hour, and at every ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... forgiveness was cheaper than a new garment; every priest was allowed to keep a mistress if he paid a tax to the bishop. Two poems of the troubadour, Guillem Figueiras, express the state of affairs very bluntly: "Our shepherds have become thievish wolves, plundering and despoiling the fold under the guise of messengers of peace. They gently console their sheep night and day, but once they have them in their power, these false shepherds let their flock perish and die." In the other poem he ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... grass was best, and the knots he tied were the knots his dad would have tied in his place. He unrolled his blanket and carried it to the sheltered little nook under the ledge, and dragged the bag of doughnuts and the jelly and honey and bread after it. He had heard about thievish animals that will carry off bacon and flour and such. He knew that he ought to hang his grub in a tree, but he could not reach up as far as the fox who might try to help himself, so that was ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... ordinary Course) and that he will have the Enjoyment of handsome young Women, great Store of Deer to hunt, never meet with Hunger, Cold or Fatigue, but every thing to answer his Expectation and Desire. This is the Heaven they propose to themselves; but, on the contrary, for those Indians that are lazy, thievish amongst themselves, bad Hunters, and no Warriours, nor of much Use to the Nation, to such they allot, in the next World, Hunger, Cold, Troubles, old ugly Women for their Companions, with Snakes, and all sorts of nasty Victuals to feed on. Thus is mark'd out their Heaven ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... I see! Polly was tempted by the glittering thing; he loves glitter, and he snatched it up and flew right back home with it. He hid it somewhere; that's his thievish nature, and when I came in here he was walking up and down the floor as innocent appearin' as a lamb! Oh, you ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... and orderly condition as to dispense prudent traders from the necessity of joining together in large bodies, well provisioned and well armed, when they are about to move valuable goods any considerable distance. There have always been robber-tribes in the mountain tracts, and thievish Arabs upon the plains, ready to pounce on the insufficiently protected traveller, and to despoil him of all his belongings. Hence the necessity of the caravan traffic. As early as the time of Joseph—probably ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... nearly twelve when he reached home. Now, once more, would begin the gruesome process of deception—flinching of soul, and brazening of visage. It would be better when the whole thievish business was irretrievably begun and ordered in its ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... from the press before Luther heard of the deeds of violence of Rohrbach and his fellows. Fearing that complete anarchy would result from the triumph of the insurgents, against whom no effective blow had yet been struck, he wrote a tract Against the Thievish, Murderous Hordes of Peasants. [Sidenote: The peasants denounced] In this he denounced them with the utmost violence of language, and urged the government to smite them without pity. Everyone should avoid a peasant as he would the devil, and should join the forces to slay them like mad dogs. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... "though every Englishman thinks he is a judge of horseflesh, and I fancy those might possess endurance, if not up to much weight. As for the men, they seem to fancy themselves more than the Egyptians; but a more villainous, blood- thirsty, thievish-looking set of scoundrels, it has never been my luck to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... shook her rickety erection of trestles and boards. She was as red in the face as Birkenbog himself, for a cur with a kettle tied to its tail had taken refuge under her stall, and she had been serving a writ of ejectment with the same old umbrella with which she whacked thievish boys and sheltered her goods ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... culprit, who combined with an innocent taste for green peas a thievish method of acquiring their usual savory accompaniment, is reported to have been addressed by an English judge in the following felicitous terms:—"Prisoner at the bar, Providence has endowed you with health and strength, instead of which you go about the country ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Mus-qua-kees, or the Red Earth People. They said that they had been made from red clay. Their totem was a fox; and the French of the Great Lakes had dubbed them Foxes—had asserted that, like the fox, they were quarrelsome, tricky and thievish. As warriors they were much ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... have attempted to lay violent hands upon our Shakespeare? It is but part of their general policy of pillage. Stealing comes as easy to them as it came to Bardolph and Nym, who in Calais stole a fire-shovel. Wherever they have gone they have cast a thievish eye upon what does not belong to them. They hit upon the happy plan of levying tolls upon starved Belgium. It was not enough for their greed to empty a country of food; they must extract something from its pocket, even though it be dying ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... thievish Jack he looks! I wish for my part all the cooks Would come and baste him with a ladle As long as ever they were able, To keep his fingers ends from itching After sweet things in ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... later critics have made merry. {251b} A few lines were obviously drawn from that story of Boccaccio with which Shakespeare had dealt just before in 'Cymbeline.' {251c} But Shakespeare created the high-spirited Paulina and the thievish pedlar Autolycus, whose seductive roguery has become proverbial, and he invented the reconciliation of Leontes, the irrationally jealous husband, with Hermione, his wife, whose dignified resignation and forbearance ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... I say; not but that he was a Drunkard and also Thievish, but he was most arch in this sin of Uncleanness: This Roguery was his Master-piece, for he was a Ringleader to them all in the beastly sin of Whoredom. He was also best acquainted with such houses where they were, and so could readily lead the rest of his Gang unto them. ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... living from the unfruitful patch of land which constituted his estate. He had wandered for many years aimlessly among the people, and had even gone from one sea to the other,—no mean distance,—and everywhere he lied and grimaced, and would make some discovery with his thievish eye, and then suddenly disappear, leaving behind him animosity and strife. Yes, he was as inquisitive, artful and hateful as a one-eyed demon. Children he had none, and this was an additional proof that Judas was a wicked man, that God would not ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... I stood, and heard men running at a little distance. 'Fire your guns!' I cried out, as loud as I could. My order was obeyed, and such a yelling and howling immediately filled the whole forest as would have chilled your very heart. The thievish varmints instantly fled ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... themselves. I would have suffered the rack to have recalled that hour. It was too late. On going into the kitchen shortly after, I found a poor woman of the neighborhood with the box, which she said her thievish son had confessed he stole from the pantry. Perhaps some parents imagine the feelings of Charlotte and myself when we made this discovery. But they are few. The boys both shunned us, and we dreaded to see them. But at last we ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... and tell me that each adult in Britain drank so many pints last year, you might just as well recite a mathematical proof. I fix on some one human figure that your words may suggest and the image of the bright lad whom I saw become a dirty, loafing, thievish sot is more instructive and more woeful than all your ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... tree-trunk like a streak of striped lightning. This was delightful; and no less so a flight of crows which passed overhead, cawing, and flying so low that the children could see every feather in their bodies, which shone in the sun like burnished green-black jet, and the glancing of their thievish eyes. ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge |
